ALBANY, N.Y. -- New York's finest crafts will be showcased at the 1999 Contemporary Crafts of New York State Exhibition. The show from Feb. 12 to May 2 at the State Museum features 92 works. Additionally, 9 x 9 x 3, a celebration of the 21st anniversary of the Textile Study Group of New York, will present a unique display of 52 contemporary fiber pieces.

"This exciting exhibit truly represents some of the best crafts New York State has to offer," said Cliff Siegfried, the Museum's director. "As part of the State Education Department, we're proud to teach the public about this fine industry and these art forms."

The show is organized in cooperation with the Crafts Alliance of New York State. Color and wit will merge in extraordinary interpretations of common items, like a lamp and a briefcase, displayed alongside pieces conceived for pure aesthetic reasons, like sculptures and wall-hangings.

"We hope that this exhibit will educate, inspire, and help the public understand and recognize true hand craftsmanship. The Contemporary Crafts exhibition acknowledges the great tradition of craft in New York State," said Megan White, director of the Crafts Alliance, a Syracuse-based nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the professional development of craftspeople.

For 9 x 9 x 3, each artist created a work within the confines of a box with those dimensions, a modular format that unifies a diverse variety of work.

The Textile Study Group of New York, founded in 1977, has grown from a circle of six students drawn together by an interest in fiber to over 100 members today. It includes both established and emerging artists. 9 x 9 x 3's first venue was the American Craft Museum in New York City, Sept. 19 - Oct. 18, 1998.

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*For color slides or to arrange interviews with artists, please call 518/474-0079.

ALBANY - Dr. Cliff Siegfried, who has led research on aquatic ecology for 20 years at the New York State Museum, was today named Assistant Commissioner for Museums and Director of the museum, Cultural Education Deputy Commissioner Carole Huxley announced.

The New York State Board of Regents unanimously approved her recommendation at their meeting in Queens earlier today to ratify Dr. Siegfried's appointment to oversee operations of the Museum, a program of the State Education Department.

"As one who credits public education opportunities through the graduate level with his success as a scientist, Dr. Siegfried brings to this position a deep personal dedication to the Education Department's mission -- 'To raise the knowledge, skill and opportunity of all the people in New York.' He is committed to enlarging educational access through the informal, individual learning museums provide," Huxley said.

"In his tenure here, he has been adept at forging partnerships to attain major program objectives, has secured significant support for research at the Museum and enjoys the widespread respect of his peers and colleagues," Huxley said. "I join all of them in my pleasure at his appointment and in my expectations that Dr. Siegfried will provide strong leadership for the State Museum and for museums statewide."

Dr. Siegfried, 51, of Altamont was chosen from an impressive array of candidates, including international applicants, who sought the $93,226 position after it was vacated by Louis Levine. Levine resigned in June to become director of collections and exhibitions at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.

"The New York State Museum is the oldest state museum in the nation and has made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge about New York and the world," Dr. Siegfried said. "I consider it an honor to be asked to lead the New York State Museum."

In his new role, Dr. Siegfried will oversee the Museum's master plan to revamp its permanent exhibitions; continue developing partnerships with other museums to bring world-class exhibits to Albany, such as the Fleet Great Art Exhibition and Education Program; and to advocate on behalf of museums throughout the state.

"We need to have more of a statewide presence so we can provide school children everywhere with exciting opportunities, such as distance learning," Dr. Siegfried said. "And since we're committed to lifelong learning for all New Yorkers, we hope to better enrich the experience of every one of our visitors."

Dr. Siegfried is also involved in an effort to procure additional funding to improve the stewardship of the Museum's 6 million items in its collections. That will keep the Museum's resources accessible to future generations of New Yorkers.

An environmental biologist specializing in the study of freshwater ecology, Dr. Siegfried has worked at the Museum for 20 years. He received a Ph.D. from the University of California at Davis. Since 1995, he has worked as the Deputy Director for the Museum. Prior to that, he was the chief of the biological survey. A prolific researcher, he has continued to publish articles, including two in 1998 focusing on the impact zebra mussels have on the quality of waterways in central New York. His important studies investigating the effect of zebra mussels has helped monitor the growing threat of the invasive pest to New York State.

ALBANY, N.Y. - There will be no "Do Not Touch" signs in the all-new Discovery Place at the New York State Museum. The interactive area will re-open Saturday, May 22, featuring hands-on and computer exhibits for children of all ages. A special all-day celebration encompassing the entire Museum will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The Discovery Place will include SciWorks, new computers, microscopes and an exhibit where kids can construct a mastodont. A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held at 11 a.m.

"Kids can be entomologists, historians, physicists and paleontologists at the new Discovery Place," said State Museum Director Cliff Siegfried. "It's just the beginning of where the State Museum is heading - toward a more interactive and a more visitor-friendly atmosphere."

The State Museum, a program of the State Education Department, is in the midst of formulating a master plan that will rejuvenate its exhibits.

The renovation of the Discovery Place is made possible by a $50,000 gift from Fleet Financial Group, a strong supporter of the Museum. IBM is sponsoring five computers. The SciWorks hands-on exhibits include a Bernoulli Blower, Conic Sections, a Pedal Generator and a Hand Battery.

The State Museum, home to dozens of researchers, historians and scientists, will also host presentations throughout the exhibit halls on May 22.

* At 1 and 3 p.m., historian Christine Kleinegger will present "New York ... Sleeps." She will talk about her current research on sleeping habits. At the Long House.

* At 1 p.m., archaeologist George Hamell will talk about mastodonts. At the Ice Age diorama.

* Between 1 and 4 p.m., scientists and other researchers will use live specimens to talk about their particular specialties. In the Museum Theater. The presenters include: aquatic biologists Bob Daniels and Dan Molloy, who will talk about crayfish, crabs and zebra mussels; curator Todd Hunsinger, who will give a presentation on amphibians and reptiles; and lepidopterist Tim McCabe will speak about butterflies and moths.

* Between 2 and 3 p.m., Native American specialist Toni Benedict will hold a workshop on making cornhusk dolls.

Other activities include presentations on Adirondack animals, folk tales and songs, and storytelling. McGruff the Crime Dog and Rowdy the Albany River Rat, the mascot of the American Hockey League team, will be on hand to welcome families to the Museum. Albany City Police Officers will also fingerprint kids in the Main Lobby.

ALBANY, NY: Way before the New York State Thruway, Amtrak and the Erie Canal linked places throughout New York State, people got around. It may have taken a little longer, but innovative and determined travelers made use of existing waterways.

For ten years, Philip Lord, the acting chief of the historical survey at the New York State Museum, has studied early river travel and the very first canal age in New York - more than 30 years prior to the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. What he found was remarkable. He will be presenting some of his findings in an informal gathering in the main lobby of the State Museum from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 27.

The Durham Project - named for the flat-bottomed boats used for this travel - has uncovered journals, maps and logs that documented the often harrowing trips people would take to make their way from the Hudson River to the Great Lakes. Lord will display some of the maps, as well as models he has constructed of the boats used for these trips.

"It's trying to fill a gap in our illusion of transportation after the Revolution and before the Erie Canal," Lord said.

In the late 18^th century, the inland navigation corridor between Albany and Oswego, on Lake Ontario, was a highway of commerce and migration across New York and into the Midwest through the Great Lakes. Previously, it had been used for exploring and warfare.

Lord, who is working on a book about the project, first became aware of the possibility of an earlier canal system when remains of 18^th century canals were unearthed during a state Department of Transportation project near the city of Herkimer in 1983.

"That led me to wonder if there were more of these remains," Lord said. Before the Erie Canal was built, Lord found that people integrated a series of natural and artificial waterways.

Lord's findings have also included the discoveries of such diverse items as:

• the site of the first canal dug in the state, completed near Utica in 1730;
• the true location of the primary village of the Mohawks during the French and Indian War west of Canajoharie;
• an ancient sinkhole near Richfield Springs where a stream disappears underground, a fact noted on British maps almost 250 years ago;
• several errors in the names of places.

The project has also provided a glimpse of what rivers and river travel was like in the days before good roads carried people west. The trip - which entailed traversing rapids and very shallow water at times could sometimes take as long as 10 days. Travelers would often sleep in their boats. Other times, they'd stay at taverns or ask farmers if they could sleep in their barns. They would even camp along the riverbanks or in the woods.

Lord is in the midst of constructing a database consisting of the maps, journals, letters and other data that he uncovered. Anyone would be able to access that data for research when it is completed. The project has already aided college students and Native American researchers.

Durham Project of the NYS Historical Survey

ALBANY, N.Y. - The New York State Museum will celebrate Earth Day 2000 on Saturday, April 22, with free family activities throughout the day that include recycled crafts, ecology projects and talks by biologists.

"As a museum filled with researchers who interpret the natural history of New York State and exhibitions focusing on the state's wildlife, land and history, the museum is the perfect place to educate the public about the environment," Director Cliff Siegfried said.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Earth Day, which focuses attention on environmental issues throughout the world.

At the Museum, many Earth Day projects will incorporate the exhibitions that feature New York State's habitats. The Museum's own Discovery Squad, an afternoon program for teens, helped coordinate and will be leading some of the Earth Day festivities.

Some of the activities include:

• Biologist Dr. Dan Molloy will talk about his research involving zebra mussels. From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Main Lobby.
• Biodiversity Research Institute specialists Ron Gill and Karen Frolich will talk about dragonflies. From 11 a.m. to noon near the Discovery Place.
• Peer through microscopes and learn what organisms can live in pond water.From noon to 3 p.m. at the Discovery Place.
• Make stationary and envelopes using old wallpaper. From 1 to 2 p.m. in the Student Center.
• Create bird feeders using peanut butter and pinecones. From 1 to 3 p.m. in the Student Center.
• Learn how birds eat. From 1 to 4 p.m. throughout the day in Bird Hall.

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ALBANY, N.Y. -- Hundreds of schoolchildren are learning how to interpret fine art at the New York State Museum through the Fleet Great Art Exhibition and Education Program.

Students from schools throughout the area are visiting the State Museum to learn about Pop Art: Selections from the Museum of Modern Art, the first Fleet Great Art exhibit running through May 2.

"As part of the State Education Department, we are deeply committed to making the Fleet Great Art Series a memorable learning experience for students, as well as adults," Museum Director Cliff Siegfried said.

Education programs for students are developed in collaboration with the Capital Region Center for Arts in Education. The programs are ongoing from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays for the visiting students. On weekends through April 25 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., an artist is available to answer questions for the general public.

Schools participating in the Pop Art outreach programs include: Fort Edward Elementary School, Livingston Magnet School in Albany and the Oliver Winch Junior High School in South Glens Falls.

Teaching artist Tom Gagnon, an abstract painter, first worked with many of the students in their classrooms showing them slides and preparing them for the Museum experience.

As Gagnon takes them on a tour of the exhibit, he engages them with questions about what they see in the works, what they consider to be their favorite paintings or their least favorite.

Then to make the conceptual leap, students construct their own Pop Art to gain a better understanding of what artists like Andy Warhol, Robert Indiana and Claes Oldenburg were trying to express.

The students' Pop Art pieces may be displayed on a board outside the Pop Art exhibit to show how they used some of the same techniques used by those artists involved in the Pop Art movement.

Some of the exhibit's highlights include Warhol's famous series of thirty-two Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962, and Self-Portrait, 1966; Tom Wesselmann's well-known Still Life #30; and Oldenburg's Giant Soft Fan, 1966-67.

Curated by Anne Umland, Pop Art features 26 works from MoMA's renowned collection - all created in the U.S. during the 1960s - the defining decade of this movement.

The series is funded through a $450,000 grant from Fleet to be used over the next three years to bring exceptional shows to the State Museum. An additional $100,000 challenge grant from The Hearst Foundation, Inc. will help the Museum further strengthen the program.

The series was made possible with the leadership of state Sen. Roy M. Goodman, R-Manhattan, who initiated these exhibits by encouraging the partnership between the State Museum and the great art museums of New York City.

Along with Goodman, Harry M. Rosenfeld, editor-at-large of the Times Union of Albany, was instrumental in assisting the State Museum.

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ALBANY, N.Y. - Visitors will have a special opportunity to view the rare Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation written almost exclusively in President Abraham Lincoln's hand from Wednesday, Feb. 2, to Sunday, Feb. 6. It will be displayed in the South Hall of the New York State Museum to honor African American History Month.

The Museum's daily operating hours of 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. will be extended until 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 2 and Thursday, Feb. 3 for this event co-sponsored by the Museum, the New York State Library, the Governor's Office and the New York State Police.

"We are pleased to present the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to the public," Museum Director Cliff Siegfried said. "This is also a preview of things to come. The Museum's Master Plan includes an exciting exhibit that features this document. In a few years, the public will be able to view the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on a permanent basis."

Lincoln read this four-page document, owned by the New York State Library for the last 135 years, to his Cabinet on Sept. 22, 1862, nearly two years into the Civil War.

It declared that all persons living as slaves in states still in rebellion against the United States on Jan. 1, 1863, "shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free."

On New Year's Day 1863, Lincoln signed the Final Emancipation Proclamation. Although it did not immediately free a single slave, the action set a moral tone for the Civil War. The manuscript of the Final Emancipation Proclamation was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Coincidentally, if a quick-acting state employee didn't save the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation from the fire at the New York State Capitol on March 29, 1911, it too would have been lost.

New York State came to own the document on April 28, 1865, three days after Lincoln's funeral train passed through Albany. At that time, the New York State Legislature purchased the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation for $1,000, and gave it to the State Library.

To exhibit this document to the public, it is enclosed in a stainless steel and glass container filled with inert gases to prevent oxygen from damaging it. State troopers will give the document round-the-clock protection.

"One of the greatest documents in American history, the Emancipation Proclamation represents what was probably Lincoln's greatest moment as President and the thing for which he is most remembered," said James Corsaro, Associate Librarian, Manuscripts and Special Collections at the New York State Library.

"Written in Lincoln's own hand, the preliminary draft of the document is preserved in the collections of the New York State Library as an important part of our historic heritage," Corsaro said.

More information on the document, including its text, can be found at the State Library's website.

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ALBANY, N.Y. - What do Shakers, fish, motorcycles and Berenice Abbott have in common? Usually, absolutely nothing. At the New York State Museum, they are the subjects of new exhibitions that round out the second half of 2000.

This exhibition schedule is subject to change and reporters and editors should verify the dates before publication. Please contact the Communications Office for press kits, digital images or slides. The Museum is on Madison Avenue in downtown Albany. It is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily and is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day.

A Shaker Legacy
The Shaker Collection at the New York State Museum

July 29 - October 22, 2000
Exhibition Hall

This exhibition, previously held in November 1999, was so popular, we're bringing it back. The New York State Museum was the first institution to form a comprehensive collection of Shaker material culture, which now includes over 100,000 objects, the largest collection of Shaker artifacts in existence.

This exhibition includes 200 items from that collection, which includes Shaker furniture, clothing, baskets, and the tools that produced them. The only intact Fountain Stone that survives from any Shaker community will be on display. The stone, used for religious rituals, was discovered when the state was building the Craig Developmental Center at the site of the Groveland Shaker community in Livingston County.

The New York State Museum will be updating and reissuing a catalog for this exhibition titled A Shaker Legacy: The Shaker Collection at the New York State Museum.

Additionally, never-before-seen photographs by William F. Winter (1899-1939) will be displayed in a separate gallery. Winter, a Schenectady photographer, documented the Shakers and sparked the interest of the Museum's director in collecting Shaker artifacts.

Front Yards, Backyards and Beneath the Streets
Historic Archaeology at the New York State Museum

Opening July 15
West Gallery

Pieces of dishes, children's toys and medicine bottles -- these are some of the clues that help archaeologists learn more about people who used to live in New York State. Even though these people are not here to tell us their story, the everyday things they left behind provide valuable information on the lives of the household members. Their ages, occupations, health and socio-economic status are all details that can be culled from those objects.

Besides knowledge gained through excavation, archeologists and architectural historians from the New York State Museum also gain valuable information by analyzing and interpreting aboveground remains by documenting historic buildings and bridges.

This exhibition tells the story of the Museum's Cultural Resource Survey Program and its many scientific sleuths who are constantly discovering new information about the New Yorkers who lived long ago.

Some of the fascinating artifacts that will be displayed are from the Pearl Street excavation in Albany that uncovered human remains of early colonists and an excavation from an 1841 fire in Waterford that destroyed a large section of downtown.

Berenice Abbott's Changing New York

November 17 - April 16, 2001
Crossroads Gallery

Renowned photographer Berenice Abbott was employed by the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) from 1935 to 1938 to capture the rapidly changing urban scene.

Thirty-nine of these photographs from this major Depression Era project in New York City will be shown.

Previously Abbott had worked as darkroom assistant to Man Ray in Paris and had become an accomplished portrait photographer of such intellectuals as James Joyce and Jean Cocteau.

While in France, she discovered and was influenced by the work of Eugene Atget, who photographed Paris from the 1880s to the late 1920s. Abbott's absence from New York allowed her to view the city with fresh eyes when she returned in 1929, on the eve of the Depression.

Abbott was struck by "the past jostling the present" as she surveyed New York's cityscapes. In this exhibition, curated by Museum senior historian Christine Kleinegger, viewers may be struck by an even more profound sense of change as they compare the "present" of the 1930s with New York of today.

The Museum acquired the photographs after Museum Director Charles Adams suggested in 1938 that "Changing New York" travel to other cities "to impress local people with the importance of doing similar work in their localities." In that spirit, the current exhibition will be complemented by a student photography show that documents life in Yonkers, Syracuse, Rochester, Watertown and Buffalo.

The Collector As Bookbinder
The Piscatorial Bindings of S.A. Neff Jr.

October 6 - December 31, 2000
Photo Gallery

This exquisite exhibition of the bookbindings and boxes of S.A. Neff Jr., an accomplished angler and "piscatorial bilbliophile," epitomizes an art form rarely found at the beginning of the 21st century. Neff has been exhibiting his bookbindings nationally and internationally since 1986, when he began to create unique sets of angling books for his library. This show features many esoteric works by Neff, who will also be visiting the museum to demonstrate his art.

The Great New York Motorcycle Show

December 9, 2000 - April 10, 2001
Exhibition Hall

In the early days of motor transportation, New York made important contributions to the development and production of motorcycles. This exhibition will recreate the atmosphere of a 1910 period trade show, in which motorcycle makers showed their wares to potential dealers and buyers in arenas fitted with individual display booths. About 35 motorcycles from the 1890s through the 1970s will be displayed. All of the motorcycles are loaned to the museum from private collectors or other museums and were built in New York State.

Concurrently, the Museum plans to publish an encyclopedia of New York motorcycle builders titled The Motorcycle Industry in New York State: A Concise Encyclopedia of Inventors, Builders and Manufacturers.

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ALBANY, N.Y. -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1932 Model 905 Packard will be delivered to the State Museum Saturday, June 19, between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.

Arnoff Fine Art Services, a division of Arnoff Moving and Storage, Inc., is generously donating their time and resources to move the valuable car Roosevelt purchased himself for use as governor of New York.

The Packard, now in storage at the Museum's Rotterdam facility that houses part of the Museum's collections, will be featured in the upcoming Looking Back: The State Museum in the Year 2000 exhibit scheduled to open on July 15.

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ALBANY, N.Y. - A Green Island man has generously donated a 1947 fire engine to the New York State Museum today in memory of his parents and to honor the fire department that often came to their aid.

The lives of Tim McGan's parents, Jay and Alice McGan, were extended by the ministrations of Green Island emergency service personnel. His mother died in 1999, 10 years after his father passed away. This 1947 American-LaFrance 700 pumper actually came to their assistance.

"The last time I saw the truck in service was at my mom's," said McGan, a senior account clerk with the state Comptroller's Office. "I wanted to help the village. I've always enjoyed antique fire trucks. And ever since I saw this display at the Museum, I just said this old '47 wasn't going to disappear into the wilderness." McGan purchased the engine from the Village of Green Island Fire Department in May with money his parents had left him.

The engine will be placed on exhibition in the Museum's fire-fighting exhibition in the Museum's East Gallery.

"We are extremely grateful to Mr. McGan for donating this engine to the people of the state of New York. Now, it will be placed on exhibition for all to see," Museum Director Cliff Siegfried said.

"The American LaFrance 700 series represents a radical post-World War II modification in fire engine design," said Geoffrey Stein, the curator of the fire truck collection at the museum. The 700 was the first cab forward pumper. The 700 series prompted the other builders of fire apparatus in the country to follow with their own short wheelbase, flat-front rigs, Stein said.

The 700 American-LaFrance was perhaps the Elmira company's most successful model, and was sold all over the country. The example being donated to the Museum, a program of the State Education Department, was purchased in 1947, the first year for the 700s, by the village of Green Island. And the rig remained in service until 2000.

The newly acquired fire engine will be placed in the Museum's Fire Engine Hall along with a dozen other fire apparatus.

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The New York State Museum is open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

ALBANY, NY -- There's an art to science and a science to art, and every once in a while the two cross.

Natural history artists from around the state, the country and the world who work with scientists depicting plants, animals, bugs and other subjects will display their art at the New York State Museum this fall. The works will be featured in Focus on Nature V: Natural History Illustration from Oct. 15 to Dec. 15 in the West Gallery.

Both scientists and illustrators will come together from Oct. 14 to Oct. 17 for the New York Natural History Conference V: A Forum for Current Research for workshops on topics as varied as freshwater mussels, butterflies, color theory and identifying fish.

Patricia Kernan, the New York State Museum's staff illustrator, has documented thousands of plants and animals while working with scientists on research projects. "For centuries illustrators and scientists have collaborated beginning with the earliest medicinal herbals," said Kernan, who is curator of the exhibit. All the major natural history museums still use illustrators, relying on pen, ink, watercolors and other mediums to elucidate the results of research and collections.

Kernan, who majored in Latin American studies at the University of Wisconsin, first came in contact with scientific illustration while visiting a nature center in Ecuador. She saw sketches of orchids by a researcher and thought she could do better. While visiting friends in Ecuador who were fanatical about orchids, she set up a studio and began drawing the specimens. That led to a degree in scientific illustration from the Rhode Island of Design and four months in Costa Rica drawing unique rain forest plants being collected for the Missouri Botanical Garden. She also spent a month in Panama assisting collectors and recording plants for the Fairchild Tropical Garden. In 1988, she began working at the State Museum.

Kernan's methods sometimes involve peering into a microscope at a specimen for hours just to get the intricate detail perfect. Exactness and clarity of line is extremely important in this art since it documents valuable research that scientists may rely upon for years. Kernan's drawings of precisely beautiful illustrations of orchids, mosses and animals have graced the pages of many studies and publications produced by the State Museum. Working within the confines of exact measurements and scientific accuracy, Kernan said she strives to test her creativity by making the drawings as aesthetically pleasing as possible.

"It opens up a whole world of observation, looking at that level of detail," Kernan said.

For more information or for exhibit slides, please call 518/474-0079.

ALBANY, N.Y. - Focus on Nature VI: Natural History Illustration, blends art and science by showcasing the work of science and natural history illustrators. The exhibition is on display from April 26 through July 30 in the New York State Museum's Photo Gallery.

Featuring 85 works from 61 artists, this juried exhibition features representatives from the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators and the American Society of Botanical Artists. This year it coincides with and nicely complements another annual museum event, the New York State Natural History Conference, held from April 26-29.

Curated by Patricia Kernan, the museum's scientific illustrator, the exhibition features mammals, insects, flowers and other specimens important to scientific research in pen, ink, watercolor and other mediums. Kernan sometimes spends hours observing a specimen through a microscope just to get all of the details perfect.

Kernan's precise illustrations have graced the pages of many studies and publications produced by the State Museum. Working within the confines of exact measurements and scientific accuracy, Kernan says she strives to make her drawings as aesthetically pleasing as possible. In fact, the illustrations displayed in the exhibit do much to elucidate our knowledge of science, but can also be appreciated as works of art.

Three workshops by scientific illustrators will be held in conjunction with the exhibit and the Natural History Conference. They are open to the public at the Museum.

Nature Drawing for Everyone

Merri Nelson, a freelance natural science artist and instructor at the Smithsonian Institution, will talk about Nature Drawing for Everyone. Ms. Nelson describes her workshop as an opportunity to develop and/or hone your observation skills through drawing. It will be held on Wednesday, April 26, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Registration payment is $65, Museum members pay $55.

Color Theory for Natural History Illustrators

Louisa Rawle Stine, an instructor at the New York Botanical Garden and the Institute for Ecosystem Studies, will address Color Theory for Natural History Illustrators. Her workshop is intended to de-mystify color theory and teach a simple and elegant process for accurate color mixing. It will take place on Thursday, April 27, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Registration is $65, Museum members pay $55.

Illustrating Insects

Katie Lee will do a presentation on illustrating insects. She is a botanical and zoological artist and illustrator of children's books who currently teaches at the New York Botanical Garden. Internationally known, Lee has given drawing and painting workshops everywhere from Africa to South America. Lee will conduct her workshop on April 28, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Registration is $96, Museum members pay $83.

For more information or exhibit slides, please call 518/474-5811.

ALBANY, N.Y. - The biggest names in American folk art -- Rufus Hathaway, Edward Hicks, Joshua Johnson and Ammi Phillips -- will be featured at the New York State Museum in American Folk Art from The Metropolitan Museum of Art from Feb. 11 to April 23, 2000.

The exhibition in the West Gallery is the third installment in the Fleet Great Art Exhibition and Education Program.

"This exhibit celebrates the first time this important collection of folk paintings has been seen together outside the walls of The Metropolitan Museum of Art," said Mark Schaming, the State Museum's Director of Exhibitions. "Together these beautiful and iconic works transport us to 19th century America through the eyes of these wonderful artists."

The more than 50 works from The Metropolitan Museum's distinguished collection of American folk art include portraits, landscapes and historical and religious scenes. Featured are such canonical works as Lady with her Pets (1790) by Rufus Hathaway, Peaceable Kingdom (ca. 1830-32) by Edward Hicks, Falls of Niagara (1825) by Hicks and Mrs. Mayer and Daughter (1835-1840) by Ammi Phillips.

The precise nature of folk art has long been the subject of debate among art historians, critics, folklorists and collectors. The artists may have acquired their skills through apprenticeship, observation or informal learning. Their work adheres to the aesthetic standards of the communities in which they worked.

This exhibition was organized by Carrie Rebora Barratt, Associate Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture and Manager of The Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Fleet Great Art Series is made possible by a $450,000 donation from Fleet Financial Group. The Hearst Foundation Inc. has also given the State Museum a $100,000 grant to strengthen the program, which includes educational workshops for both students and adults. The State Museum, part of the State Education Department, is committed to lifelong learning for all New Yorkers.

State Sen. Roy M. Goodman, R-Manhattan, initiated these exhibitions by encouraging the partnership between the State Museum and the great art museums of New York City. Harry M. Rosenfeld, editor-at-large of the Times Union of Albany, was also instrumental in assisting the State Museum. Additional support comes from the Times Union, WNYT News Channel 13 and Lang Media.

Guided exhibit tours will be offered free to the public every weekend from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. through April 2 for American Folk Art. The tours are 30 minutes long and will be held every 45 minutes.

The State Museum is on Madison Avenue in downtown Albany. It is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. everyday except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day.

The public may call 518/474-5877 for more information.

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*For slides, please call the Communications Office at 518/486-2003.

ALBANY, N.Y. - The third installment of the Fleet Great Art Series, American Folk Art from The Metropolitan Museum, will be at the New York State Museum until April 23.

Guided exhibit tours will be offered free to the public every weekend from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. through April 2 for American Folk Art. The tours, conducted by teaching artists from the Capital Region Center for Arts in Education, are 30 minutes long and will be held every 45 minutes.

Additionally, the State Museum has organized a series of talks that will take place during the course of the exhibit. They are:

American Folk Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
2 p.m., Sunday, March 5

Carrie Rebora Barratt, Associate Curator, American Paintings and Sculpture, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, will talk about the distinguished collection that features works by Rufus Hathaway, Edward Hicks, Joshua Johnson, Ammi Phillips, and others.

Revisiting Ammi Phillips: Fifty Years of Portraiture
2 p.m., Sunday, March 12

Stacy Hollander, Senior Curator, Museum of American Folk Art, will discuss Ammi Phillips, one of America's best known folk artists. The prolific 19th century portraitist worked between the Connecticut and Hudson rivers. Hollander will examine Phillips' artistic development through more than 50 years of portrait painting, and his role in the society he was portraying.

Collecting American Folk Art from the 1890s to 1950
2 p.m., Sunday, March 19

Elizabeth Stillinger, a noted historian in the fields of American decorative arts, will talk about the history of collecting folk art. The earliest American folk art collectors were interested in objects considered to be of little value, such as redware pottery, fraktur paintings, decoys and portraits. Yet these collectors were at the forefront of a wave of fascination in American folk art that continues to this day. Among those considered in this lecture are Henry Mercer, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and Edgar and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch. Stillinger is the author of a forthcoming book titled Collecting Folk Art in America 1876-1976.

Folk Art of New York State
2 p.m., Sunday, March 26

Paul D'Ambrosio, Chief Curator at the New York State Historical Association, will trace the development of folk art in New York from the 17th century to the present. New York has always been a cultural crossroads, with a multitude of people from different backgrounds continuously contributing to the artistic heritage of the state. D'Ambrosio recently curated the exhibition Empire State Mosaic: The Folk Art of New York at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown.

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ALBANY, NY - As you sit down to eat that holiday feast, did you ever wonder where that food came from? Before the grocery store. Before the modern day farm. Before takeout.

New York State Museum archaeologist Dr. John Hart knows.

The chairman of the Museum's anthropological survey focuses his research on prehistoric agriculture, and helps people understand how and where Native Americans in the Northeast first started cultivating some of the things that may be sitting on your dining room table.

His studies show that it took longer than previously suspected to establish the maize-beans-squash triad in the Northeast. The three foods are also known as the Three Sisters in Native American lore.

"It shows that the process of developing agriculture in New York State not only was a longer term process, it was a lot more complex than previously believed," Hart said.

"What makes it more complex is that those three crops entered at different times; it was more of a gradual process." Hart now believes that growing corn, beans and squash together, known as "intercropping," in New York was not well established until about A.D. 1300. Previously, scientists had thought Native Americans grew these crops together by about A.D. 1000.

Squash may have been grown about 700 B.C. in New York based on recently obtained dates from Pennsylvania. Gourds may have been grown as early as 3650 B.C. based on dates in Pennsylvania and Maine. Those gourds were being primarily used for their seeds, which were eaten, since the flesh was extremely bitter. Dried gourds may have been used as ceremonial rattles.

"These are the gourds that eventually became the squashes that we eat today," Hart said.

The first evidence of corn in New York was not until sometime between A.D. 800 and A.D. 900. According to Hart's work, beans apparently came into the picture in about A.D. 1300. The beans would grow up the cornstalks and the squash would grow around the corn. The method is illustrated in one of the State Museum's popular permanent exhibits near the Iroquois Longhouse.

Recently, Hart has begun to apply new dating techniques to old collections housed in the State Museum, a program of the State Education Department, and elsewhere.

The Roundtop site in Broome County, N.Y., was excavated in the 1960s by William Ritchie, a world-famous State Museum archaeologist. It was an important site that provided some of the oldest evidence for maize, beans and squash in the Northeast. In a chapter in the State Museum's Bulletin, "Current Northeast Paleoethnobotany," due to come out in the beginning of 1999, Hart details how he reanalyzed Ritchie's specimens using accelerator mass spectrometry dating, a process not available to Ritchie to better understand prehistoric agriculture.

The results indicate that maize, beans and squash do not occur together at Roundtop until several centuries later than previously thought. Hart is now working with Margaret Scarry, a archaeobotanist at the University or North Carolina, to see if the Roundtop results apply to other areas of the Northeast.

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ALBANY, N.Y. -- Did an ancient meteorite crash into the Catskills? Is that fossil you have from your junior high science project millions of years old? And what exactly causes a geode to form?

Geologists, mineralogists and paleontologists can answer those questions at the New York State Museum's Gem and Mineral Show & Sale on Saturday, Feb. 20, and Sunday, Feb. 21.

Programs conducted for both days during the Gem & Mineral Show held in the Museum's Terrace Gallery overlooking the Empire State Plaza and Capitol include:

• Minerals of New York State: This program will feature a lecture and slide presentation by Mineralogy Collections Manager Michael Hawkins highlighting the best of the approximately 50,000 gems and minerals, including the famous Herkimer diamonds, in the Museum's collections. 1 p.m.
• Specimen Identification: Have a stunning crystalline rock you're just using as a paperweight? Bring it in. Dr. William Kelly, the curator of mineralogy, can tell you exactly what is holding down your paper. Wonder just how old that fossil is that you have on your shelf? Dr. Ed Landing, the state paleontologist, will tell you approximately how many of millions of years old it could be. 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Panther Mountain: An Ancient Meteorite Crater? Dr. Yngvar Ishachsen, a Museum geologist, will present his hypothesis of an ancient meteorite impact structure in the Catskill Mountains. 3 p.m.

In addition, surplus, unaccessioned fossils and mineral specimens from the Museum's collections will be sold. More than 20 vendors will display and sell gems, jewelry, minerals, books, videos, lapidary equipment, silver and goldsmithing equipment and more.

Admission to the Gem & Mineral Show and Sale is $3 per person and $2.50 for Museum members. Children 12 and under are free.

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ALBANY, N.Y. - The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will become the latest world-class New York City art museum to join the Fleet Great Art Series at the New York State Museum, officials announced today.

An Art of Pure Form: Non-Objectivity and Its Legacy from the Collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will be featured at the State Museum from May 18, 2000, to July 20, 2000, in West Gallery.

"The addition of the Guggenheim as a partner to the Great Art Series brings a whole new arena of world-class art to the State Museum," said Mark Schaming, the Director of Exhibitions at the State Museum. "We are delighted to have access to their wonderful collection of great American and European masterworks. This is an outstanding complement to the already exciting schedule."

The exhibit created for the Fleet Great Art Series will feature about 30 paintings and sculptures, including works by Vasily Kandinsky, Alexander Calder, Paul Klee and Ellsworth Kelly.

"The Guggenheim has a great legacy as an institution devoted to non-objective art," stated Thomas Krens, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. "We are delighted to share this legacy with the New York State Museum and to participate in the Fleet Great Art Series."

An Art of Pure Form, organized by Clare Bell, Associate Curator for Prints and Drawings, draws from the Guggenheim's renowned collection of non-objective art. The exhibit will explore the languages of form, color and line that comprise the various aspects of non-objectivity. Nonobjective art (also called abstract art) is a term used to describe works that have no recognizable subject.

"I am thrilled that the Guggenheim will be participating in our great museum series in Albany at the State Museum," said State Sen. Roy M. Goodman, R-Manhattan.

"The Guggenheim is noted for its extraordinary innovations and its superb taste in modern art, and we will welcome their participation in our very well-received series in the capital." Sen. Goodman initiated these exhibits by encouraging the partnership between the State Museum and the great art museums of New York City.

The Guggenheim exhibit will follow American Folk Art from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which runs from Feb. 11, 2000, to April 23, 2000. The Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art participated earlier this year.

The Fleet Great Art Series began in February after Fleet Financial Group donated $450,000 to the State Museum. The Hearst Foundation Inc. also gave the State Museum a $100,000 grant to strengthen the program, which includes educational workshops for both students and adults. The State Museum, part of the State Education Department, is committed to lifelong learning for all New Yorkers.

Harry M. Rosenfeld, editor-at-large of the Times Union of Albany, was also instrumental in assisting the State Museum. Additional support comes from the Times Union, WNYT News Channel 13 and Lang Media.

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ALBANY, N.Y. - An Art of Pure Form: Selections from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will explore the language of form, color and line that comprise the various aspects of abstract art.

The exhibition, created for the Fleet Great Art Series, will be at the New York State Museum from May 18 to July 30 in West Gallery.

An Art of Pure Form will feature about 30 paintings and sculptures, including works by Vasily Kandinsky, Alexander Calder, Paul Klee, Josef Albers and Ross Bleckner.

Matthew Drutt, Associate Curator for Research at the Guggenheim, assembled this exhibition specifically for the Fleet Great Art Series drawing from the Guggenheim's renowned collection of non-objective art.

In order to create a purely artistic composition, painting has two weapons at her disposal: color and form. So wrote the Russia-born artist Kandinsky in 1912. The more abstract the form, the more clear and direct its appeal. In June of the following year, he began to invoke the term Gegenstandslos, meaning without object, to refer to his work.

The history of non-objectivity (also referred to as abstract) and the Guggenheim are intrinsically bound. What began as a movement in various coteries throughout Europe made its way to the United States thanks to Hilla Rebay von Ehrenwiesen and her consult, Solomon R. Guggenheim, heir to one of the largest mining families in the U.S.

Having amassed an eclectic gathering of Old Masters, American landscape painters and even Audubon prints, Guggenheim's collecting interests took a decidedly dramatic turn in 1927 after he met Rebay. She convinced him to buy works by Kandinsky and other practitioners of non-objectivity.

The first exhibition of non-objectivity art featuring Guggenheim's collection was held at the Gibbes Memorial Art Gallery in Charleston, S.C. Several other touring exhibitions followed. Four years later, The Museum of Non-Objective Painting, which later became the Guggenheim, was born.

The exhibition is the third installment in the Fleet Great Art Series, underwritten mainly by Fleet Bank. Additional support comes from the Hearst Foundation Inc., the Times Union of Albany, WNYT News Channel 13 and Lang Media.

Other participating world-class art museums in New York City include the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

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For slides, please call 518-474-0079.

*The New York State Museum on Madison Avenue in downtown Albany is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Sunday. The public may call us at 518-474-5877 for further information.

To further bolster the Fleet Great Art Exhibition and Education Program, the New York State Museum has received a generous $100,000 challenge grant from The Hearst Foundation, Inc.

"These additional funds will enable the Museum to strengthen our program of bringing world-class art to Albany," said Cliff Siegfried, the Museum's director. "Being part of the State Education Department, we are particularly excited because of the opportunity to provide quality educational programs for the Fleet Great Art Series."

"We are very grateful to Hearst," said Laurie Roberts, the executive director of the Museum Institute, the fundraising arm of the Museum. "The gift permits us to enrich the outreach and educational components of the program."

Fleet has generously given the State Museum $450,000 toward the program featuring exhibitions from New York City museums, such as The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Whitney Museum of American Art.

State Sen. Roy Goodman of Manhattan and Harry M. Rosenfeld, editor-at-large of the Times Union of Albany were instrumental in helping the State Museum launch partnerships with New York City museums.

"This generous grant from the Hearst Foundation helps to fulfill a dream of mine to bring to the State Museum world-class, quality art from the collections of other major museums around the state," Goodman said. A previous grant of $50,000 from Hearst helped to begin building the partnerships with the New York City museums.

"The first Hearst Foundation award in 1997 launched the Great Art Exhibition Series," Rosenfeld said. "Now, the follow-up contribution enables the arts presentations to flourish in a fuller dimension. The Hearst Foundation has been a very good mentor indeed to this innovative program." William Randolph Hearst established The Hearst Foundation in 1945 as an independent, private philanthropy operating separately from The Hearst Corporation.

The first exhibition in the Fleet Great Art Series will open Feb. 26 and run through May 2. Pop Art: Selections from The Museum of Modern Art, an overview of the movement, will include works from Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Tom Wesselmann. Six more scheduled exhibitions will follow through 2002.

The State Museum hosted Still Life: The Object in American Art last year and Winslow Homer and his Contemporaries in 1997, exhibitions from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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*For Pop Art slides or more details about future exhibits, call 518/474-0079.

ALBANY, N.Y. - Clean out your attic to help clean out Historic Cherry Hill's attic. The New York State Museum and other area historical sites and groups are joining forces on Sunday, April 30 from noon to 5 p.m. for the first Albany History Fair to help raise money for a new storage and research facility for the 213-year-old house. The event will be held in the State Museum's Terrace Gallery, and Albany Mayor Gerald Jennings is serving as the honorary chairman.

Curators will help identify those family heirlooms and flea market finds you're curious about, while professional appraisers will be available to place a monetary value on the objects. Conservators will also be on hand to assess the condition of objects and make recommendations regarding their care. Each piece that is reviewed costs $5. Admission to the fair is free.

"We really want to emphasize the historical significance to your family," said Liselle LaFrance, the director of Historic Cherry Hill. The event was also developed to raise awareness of Cherry Hill and its needs, and to bring local historical groups together.

The funds raised will help build the Edward Frisbee Center for Collections and Research on the Cherry Hill property on Pearl Street. Currently, collections not being displayed in the living spaces of Cherry Hill are stored in the house's attic, which is causing structural damage to the building. Cherry Hill's 20,000 objects are the culmination of five generations of one family from 1787-1963. Built for Philip and Maria Van Rensselaer, the house and its contents were bequeathed by the last surviving family member, Emily Rankin, to benefit the people of New York State.

Along with artifact identification, there will be presentations and events throughout the day, including tours of Treasures from the Wunsch Americana Foundation. State Museum Curators John Scherer and Ron Burch will lead tours of the exhibition of New York furniture, silver, paintings, ceramics and glass.

Other events include:

• Becky Watrous, Education Director at Cherry Hill, will discuss the famous murder at Cherry Hill that resulted in the last public execution in Albany.
• Paul Grondahl, Times Union reporter and author, will speak about Mayor Erastus Corning.
• The Willborn Temple Gospel Ensemble will perform.
• State Museum archaeologists will display and discuss "Pearl," the reconstructed face of a woman who lived nearly 300 years ago in downtown Albany.
• Karen Hartgen, archaeologist, will speak about Albany archaeology.
• Lori Fisher, Cherry Hill Curator, will talk about preserving family heirlooms.
• Jack McEneny, Assemblyman and historian, will speak about 19th century immigration.
• Phil Bayly of WNYT News Channel 13 will discuss archaic Albany laws still on the books.
• Reggie's Red Hot Feet Warmers and NitroJive will perform throughout the day.
• Albany City Trolleys will run tours to five city attractions, Cherry Hill, the Visitor's Center, the Half Moon, Schuyler Mansion and Ten Broeck Mansion.

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ALBANY, N.Y. - The New York State Museum was awarded a $25,632 matching grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to help conserve the Lewis Henry Morgan Collection of Seneca Iroquois artifacts, museum officials announced today.

"The Morgan Collection is one of the treasures of New York State. It's one of the most important holdings of Iroquois ethnological materials," Museum Director Cliff Siegfried said.

"I am proud of the role IMLS plays in helping museums across the country care for their collections," IMLS Director Beverly Sheppard said. "These awards help museums preserve their collections so that future generations may share the treasures that are our artistic, historic and scientific heritage. These awards promote long-range planning and commitment to sound practices in collections care."

The Morgan Collection was one of the first ethnographic collections to be acquired in the state. Morgan, known as the "Father of American Ethnology," assembled an unprecedented collection of Iroquois objects to help the newly formed New York State Cabinet of Natural History (later the State Museum).

Assisted by the William Parker family, a Seneca family on the Tonawanda Seneca Reservation in western New York, Morgan amassed a collection of nearly 500 objects between 1849 and 1850, which were acquired by the State. Tragically, a fire in the State Capitol in 1911 destroyed most of the collection. Now, the remaining 107 items are even more rare and important.

"I can't overemphasize how immensely significant this collection is," said Penelope Drooker, the Museum's curator of anthropology. "Together with its documentation, it provides irreplaceable evidence of the complete range of objects used in everyday life by Seneca Iroquois during the early 19th century. I'm delighted that it now will be conserved and housed as befits its importance."

The current collection includes beaded costumes, silverwork, quill decorated leather pouches, wooden ladles and stirring paddles, cornhusk salt bottles, basketry, cradleboards, lacrosse sticks, snow shoes, war clubs, bows and arrows.

A conservator who specializes in textiles will treat 11 of the most fragile items. They consist of a bird trap, a basket and nine garments and accessories.

All objects in the collection will be cleaned, provided with custom-made supports, and removed from antiquated cabinets and placed in state-of-the-art cabinets to protect them from further damage.

The collection will also be professionally photographed to reduce future handling of the objects.

Currently, a Morgan Collection skirt is on display in the Native Peoples of New York exhibition. Other objects from the collection will be incorporated into exhibitions from time-to-time as the Museum undergoes its makeover.

As part of the IMLS-funded project, a website will be constructed with images and descriptions of the collection and the conservation process. This will allow access to the Collection by a wide audience, while minimizing handling.

IMLS awarded $2,323,315 to 69 of the 203 applicants. Conservation Project Support awards support a wide range of projects to help museums safeguard their collections, including conservation training, surveys and treatment. Museums of every type, from art to zoo, are eligible for funding. These grants, which are awarded by a competitive peer review process, help museums undertake their most critical conservation activities.

This year, in honor of the Millennium, IMLS added an educational funding component to heighten public awareness of conservation issues. Few museum visitors are aware of the critical and ongoing conservation that occurs behind the scenes at museums. IMLS designed the education component funding to help build public understanding of the importance of conservation and to demystify conservation activities.

IMLS is a federal grantmaking agency in Washington, D.C., that fosters leadership, innovation and a lifetime of learning by supporting museums and libraries.

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ALBANY, N.Y. - The dramatic loneliness of an Edward Hopper cityscape and the frantic pace of a John Sloan street corner will be among the realistic images displayed as In the City: Urban Views 1900-1940 Masterpieces from the Whitney Museum of Art at the New York State Museum from May 21 to July 11.

It is the second exhibit in the Fleet Great Art Exhibition and Education Program, which brings exhibits to Albany from New York City's great art museums. In the City follows the wildly popular Pop Art: Selections from the Museum of Modern Art. All exhibits will be in the State Museum's West Gallery.

The turbulence of World War I and the Great Depression fueled American artists as they depicted city life in the first 40 years of this century. "These paintings uniquely capture the texture and spirit of the first half of this century. The exhibit brings to life the astonishing changes we experienced as a nation," said Mark Schaming, the State Museum's Director of Exhibitions.

Many of the works in the latest exhibition of the series will feature the Ashcan School led by Robert Henri. As their figurehead, Henri, encouraged these artists - including Sloan, Everett Shinn and George Luks - to paint urban life as they saw it and to break with the sentimental idealism of academic art.

These artists were the first in this country to draw their inspiration from modern city life in all its manifestations, not only the fashionable but the seamy side as well. Many got their start as newspaper artists, who would make hurried sketches on deadline to accompany a story in the next day's paper. They would be dispatched to a fire or riot scene, where they would take notes -- mentally and on paper -- hurry back to the newsroom and complete an illustration.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney built her collection by supporting these artists who responded to and recorded urban life. In 1914 she established the Whitney Studio, her first art gallery that soon became an important gathering place for artists. Hopper, Reginald Marsh and Sloan had their first solo exhibitions there. In 1931, Mrs. Whitney opened the Whitney Museum of American Art to exhibit work by living artists. Her founding collection of 700 works served as the focus of the Whitney Museum in the 1930s and 1940s.

The Fleet Great Art Series is made possible by a $450,000 donation from Fleet Financial Group. The Hearst Foundation Inc. has also given the State Museum a $100,000 grant to strengthen the program, which includes educational workshops for both students and adults. The State Museum, part of the State Education Department, is committed to lifelong learning for all New Yorkers.

State Sen. Roy M. Goodman, R-Manhattan, initiated these exhibits by encouraging the partnership between the State Museum and the great art museums of New York City.

Harry M. Rosenfeld, editor-at-large of the Times Union of Albany, was also instrumental in assisting the State Museum.

Additional support comes from WRVE 99.5, the (Albany) Times Union, WNYT News Channel 13 and Lang Media.

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*Call 518/474-0079 for slides.

STONY POINT, NY - They only have 24 hours to record as many living things as possible on a secluded island in the Hudson River. What will they find on and around Iona Island in Rockland County? A BioBlitz will be held there from noon Friday, September 15 through noon Saturday, September 16.

Researchers from the New York State Museum, the Palisades Interstate Park Commission and other institutions will blitz the island to document the creatures and plant life that exist in this unusual place only about 30 miles north of New York City.

Biodiversity is an important concept and is threatened every day by human activities around the world. It is the variety of organisms and the variety of their ecosystems. All of these organisms play a roll in the ecosystem and every one of them is important. An incredible mix can be found even close to urban areas.

"Many people have this misconception that biodiversity is only associated with tropical rainforests - this is simply not true," said Ron Gill, a Biodiversity specialist at the museum. "By having a BioBlitz, we hope that more people will realize that there is a rich diversity of life in many areas of New York State."

The Iona Island BioBlitz follows two successful events both organized by the Museum's Biodiversity Research Institute. The first, at Peebles Island State Park in Waterford, NY, in 1999 resulted in 637 different species. A BioBlitz at Papscanee Island Nature Preserve in East Greenbush, NY, in May 2000 resulted in a count totaling 416 different species.

Iona Island has an interesting history. Native Americans inhabited it until the 1600s when it was sold to a Dutch family. Until 1869, the land was leased to various farmers, including the cultivar of the Iona grape. The island then became a summer resort, which included a shooting range and a hotel until 1899 when the US Navy used the island as an arsenal. By the 1960s, nearly all of the buildings on Iona Island were destroyed. In 1965, it was acquired by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, which owns and manages the island and marsh to this day.

Iona Island measures about 100 acres and is bordered on the west by two tidal marshes, on the north by Doodletown bight, an expanse of shallows and mudflats, and on the east and south by the Hudson River. The marshes cover nearly 200 acres and are considered highly diverse habitat of excellent quality by the New York State Coastal Program.

Iona Island and Marshes are part of the Hudson River National Estuarine Sanctuary and Research Reserve and a National Landmark. More recently, the site was designated a Bird Conservation Area by the state in 1997.

PLEASE NOTE: The island is a restricted area and is closed to the public. To obtain press credentials, directions and other important information for the event, reporters should call 518-486-2003 or email dliquori@mail.nysed.gov as soon as possible.

GREENFIELD, N.Y. -- Lester Park, one of the New York State Museum's outdoor exhibits and a world-famous fossil site, will be rededicated on Saturday, June 19 at 1 p.m.

The rededication will include a short program and a tour by State Paleontologist Dr. Ed Landing.

Roadside exhibits like Lester Park were all the rage in Victorian times. People would pack a picnic lunch and head out to a remote spot to see unusual natural history features, like the stromatolites at Lester Park. Visitors to this exhibit have an opportunity to learn about how life originated on earth.

This Saratoga County site boasts paleontological features used in textbooks and scientific papers since the 1860s as perfect examples of the marine life that existed in New York State 490 million years ago when most of the state was covered by shallow tropical seas. Dozens of college and university classes visit the site every year.

"Lester Park was one of the earliest fossil localities described in the eastern U.S. and continues to be an important teaching and research laboratory," Landing said.

Stromatolites, which mean "layered stones," were built by microscopic cyanobacteria. The wavy or round formations are among the oldest known fossils and represent the activities of organisms that produced the earth's first abundance of oxygen. The underwater plant-like organisms paved the way for the appearance of animal life and are evidence of the first life forms on earth.

"Part of our mission as a program of the State Education Department is to teach all New Yorkers about science," added Museum Director Cliff Siegfried. "Lester Park offers everyone an unusual opportunity to view some of the finest examples of stromatolites in the world."

Area Boy Scouts and Museum personnel have been busy sprucing up the stromatolite mounds by clearing moss and weeds and erecting new signs so that the public can once again enjoy this outdoor treasure.

"We encourage earth science teachers to bring their classes to Lester Park so students can get an up close look at these rare specimens," Landing said.

Willard Lester Esq. donated Lester Park, on both sides of Petrified Gardens Road in the town of Greenfield, to the state in 1914.

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Directions: From downtown Saratoga Springs take 9N west. Take a left on Middle Grove Road. Then take a left on Lester Park Road (also known as Petrified Gardens Road). Continue for about 500 feet.

ALBANY, N.Y. - O. Winston Link's passion for trains was so strong, he made photographing them his life's work. The largest exhibit to showcase that zeal, Trains that Passed in the Night: The Railroad Photographs of O. Winston Link, stops at the New York State Museum from January 11 to March 12, 2000.

The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, University of Nebraska organized the exhibition of about 75 works. Thomas Garver, who served as Link's studio assistant in the 1950s, curated Trains that Passed in the Night. Garver is scheduled to speak about his experiences with Link at 1:30 p.m., Jan. 15, at the State Museum.

Since his childhood, Link loved railroads, particularly steam locomotives. He made many trips from his home in Brooklyn to the rail yards in New Jersey to watch and photograph the trains. During World War II, while engaged in a classified military research project, Link's research laboratory abutted the tracks of the Long Island Railroad and he began to photograph the trains that passed to and from New York City. After the war, he became an independent freelance photographer. He became known as one of the country's best industrial photographers and was particularly sought after when the subject posed difficult lighting situations.

In 1955, on a trip to Virginia, Link first saw the great steam engines of the Norfolk & Western Railway (N&W). At the time, the N&W was the last mainline American railroad to operate exclusively with steam power. Link made a few test photos of the arrival of a passenger train at night, using a synchronized flash. The results were so good that he quickly formulated the idea of documenting the railroad at night with a synchronized flash to be able to emphasize the important elements of the picture, while eliminating distracting details.

He approached N&W and was allowed to begin a five-year project photographing the steam locomotives until just weeks before the N&W terminated all steam operations.

Link's style and methodology were completely counter to the prevailing photographic style of the time. However, Link's railroad photographs did not receive recognition until the late 1970s and were not exhibited in a museum until 1983, almost 30 years after they were created.

Since then, there has been an increasing recognition of Link's vision and endeavor. His photographs of the N&W are now seen and appreciated as more than documents of an antique technology. They are remarkable records of a vanishing culture as well. Not only are his photos included in many museum and private collections, they are reproduced in a number of standard anthologies of 20th century photography.

Trains that Passed in the Night is part of a national tour. Following Albany, the exhibit heads to the Sordoni Art Gallery in Wilkes-Barre, Penn.

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*For slides, please phone the Communications Office at 518/486-2003.

ALBANY, N.Y. - The New York State Museum can boast 6 million objects in its collections stemming from biological, geological and historical studies. So, it was a daunting task for curators who chose the treasures to display in Looking Back: The New York State Museum in the Year 2000. The exhibit will run in Exhibition Hall from Thursday, July 15, 1999, to March 12, 2000.

"For more than 160 years, the State Museum has amassed an impressive collection that belongs to the people of New York State. It's an opportunity for people to learn more about the state and its Museum," director Cliff Siegfried said.

Probably the centerpiece of Looking Back is Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1932 Packard. Using his own money, Roosevelt purchased the 12-cylinder, seven-passenger Model 905 while governor. It cost $3,895 new. Later governors also used the car, which was transferred to the Museum's collections in 1971 from the state's fleet.

The Museum's collections are based on research in the natural sciences and human history. The artifacts and specimens are used every day by researchers, academics, industry and governmental agencies.

While the exhibit focuses on many of these objects, there's a fun side to it that illustrates some of the unusual things that find their way into all museums' collections.

Looking Back will also feature a "Cabinet of Curiosity" to display some of the oddities -- including a grain of rice engraved with a blessing -- that find their way into a museum's collections.

"It's a whimsical kind of display," said William Kelly, who headed the team of curators who put the Looking Back exhibit together. "In every museum there's weird stuff and you don't know why. Whereas modern acquisitions must relate to the Museum's mission, in the old days if someone had something unusual, we would take it," he said.

"As we prepare plans for major renovation of the Museum's exhibits and collections storage areas for the next century, we assembled this exhibit to remind ourselves and the public of our accomplishments in the last century," Kelly said.

Other items included in this exhibit:

• Paintings. A portrait of Teddy Roosevelt by Felipe Cossio del Pomar and three examples of Hudson River School art, including works by Jasper Francis Cropsey and Edward Gay.
• The writing desk of artist Thomas Cole, the father of the Hudson River School movement.
• The 2,000 pound salt pillar. A huge chunk of salt from Retsoff, NY, that was very popular with children in the old museum. Tongue-marks from generations of curious young visitors can be seen on the sides!
• Birds of New York: Watercolors by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. He was one of the world's great and influential painters of birds. The Museum commissioned Fuertes to illustrate "The Birds of New York," published in 1910 and 1914.
• Shaker furniture. The Museum possesses one of the premier collections of Shaker artifacts in the country.
• Rare fossils, gems and minerals.
• A dormer window from the Carnegie mansion in Manhattan.
• Architectural elements from New York houses from the late 1700s and 1800s.
• Gov. DeWitt Clinton's writing desk.
• Figures and artifacts from the well-remembered Native American "life groups" from the old Museum.
• An entire stationary steam engine that powered equipment in a paper mill in the Adirondacks.

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ALBANY, N.Y. - A master plan released today will dramatically overhaul the New York State Museum, incorporating such innovative features as a working carousel on its fourth floor, a running stream and a virtual canal ride.

State Education Commissioner Richard Mills and Museum officials released the master plan today after presenting it Friday to the Board of Regents, where it was enthusiastically received.

"This project will be a way for all New Yorkers and visitors, young and old, to learn even more about the Empire State," Mills said. "Museums enrich the learning experience, and museum educators are working on ways teachers can use these new exhibits to incorporate the state's learning standards."

"The new exhibit galleries will allow the museum to reassert its identity as a premier educational environment," Museum Director Cliff Siegfried said. "The new museum will both invigorate and inspire our visitors. It will reflect the richness of the entire state, both in its natural history and its people's history."

The new exhibit galleries will provide a platform for furthering the Museum and the State Education Department's commitment to lifelong learning for all New Yorkers. The project will bring modern technology into the Museum, while creating a place for discourse on current and past issues that have influenced the New York community.

The master plan project was initiated after Gov. George Pataki included a $4.5 million bond in the 1997-98 executive budget. This initial appropriation will allow the Museum to complete the first phase of the three-to-five phase project.

The project is expected to cost about $69 million, and will take between five and 10 years in several phases.

The first phase of the project, Windows on New York, will put a working carousel and a Carousel Café on the Terrace Gallery. That phase is scheduled to be complete by the summer of 2002.

A combination of state funds and private funds is expected to pay for the implementation of the other elements of the master plan, according to Siegfried.

"We are in the process of planning a capital campaign administered by our private, friends group, the Museum Institute," Siegfried said.

The public can view and offer comments on the master plan at www.nysm.nysed.gov

Master Plan Highlights

• Windows on New York:
  the first phase of the project will place a working carousel on the fourth floor terrace that overlooks the Empire State Plaza. The Carousel Café and changing exhibits will also be housed on the Terrace Gallery.
• New York State of Mind:
  a new lobby that will represent the heart of the museum where visitors will be oriented and can view numerous objects from the collections, including FDR's Packard and a suspended State Police biplane. Balconies and a mezzanine will also be visible.
• History of the New York State Museum:
  features pioneering work by museum researchers from the birth of the museum in 1836 to now.
• Shaping the Land:
  Contemporary views of New York's natural and built environments serve as gateways for understanding the forces and individuals that have combined to shape them. Visitors will see these forces through the eyes of geologists, biologists, anthropologists and historians.
• New York Ecosystems:
  How have humans and other forces changed New York environments? This section explores the intricate connections between all forms of life and the effects of human activity on delicately balanced ecosystems. A stream will flow from the mezzanine to the first floor creating an interpretive link between Shaping the Land and New York Ecosystems.
• Peopling the Land:
  Exhaustive anthropological and archaeological collections reveal the communities of Native peoples dating back 12,000 years, incorporating the popular Iroquois Long House.
• Empire State:
  New York's natural corridors and transportation networks have helped explore this state and country. Visitors can take a virtual canal ride to learn about New York's role in the settling of America.
• The Politics of Change:
  Case studies explore the state's seminal role in American politics and highlight the vitality of New York politics. These exhibits may include the Emancipation Proclamation, a copy of the U.S. Constitution, life-size photographic cutouts of suffragettes, and a theater that uses impassioned debate from the state Senate chamber.

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ALBANY, N.Y. - This exhibition documents New York State's contributions to the development of the motorcycle, and is perfect for those of you who were born to be wild.

Working from a broad industrial base, New Yorkers pioneered in the invention and early manufacture of motorized two-wheelers, which were briefly thought to be the future of American transportation. Although motorcycles ultimately did not become the common means of personal transportation, being overtaken in popularity by the automobile, New York's motorcycle inventors and builders have continued over the years to produce a rich variety of motorcycles for utilitarian use, pleasure riding and competition.

The Great New York Motorcycle Show includes them all, from the first motorized bicycles of the 1890s through the 77 cubic-inch Emblem touring machines of the 1910s and the dual purpose (on-off road) Yankees of the 1970s to the exotic custom cruisers of today. All these motorcycles have been lent to the Museum from the collections of other museums and private owners around the country. The Museum is grateful for their generosity, which has made the exhibition possible, and for the invaluable donated assistance of Arnoff Moving and Storage in transporting the motorcycles to the New York State museum from locations all around the United States and Canada.

Highlights of the exhibition include:

• Hopkins Motorcycle, 1894-95, on loan from the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. The invention of Nelson S. Hopkins is essentially a bicycle with a motor attached. The engine was patented in 1895 as an "improvement in motors for bicycles." The Hopkins machine is the oldest motorcycle in the exhibit, and one of the oldest motorcycles anywhere.
• Thomas Motorcycle, 1904, on loan from collector Douglas Redmond. The E.R. Thomas Motor Company of Buffalo was one of the first manufacturers in the United States to offer motorcycles for broad distribution. Redmond's splendidly restored Auto-Bi graphically demonstrates how different early motorcycles are from modern Hondas and Harley-Davidsons.
• Hercules Motorcycle, 1904, on loan from the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum and Curtiss Motorcycle, 1908, on loan from collector Wes Allen, are two of several Glenn Curtiss-designed machines in the exhibit. Curtiss, a trailblazer in both aviation and motorcycle design, became known in 1907 as the "fastest man in the world" for having ridden one of his eight-cylinder motorcycles to a speed of 136 mph.
• Williams Motorcycle, 1916, on loan from collector Jim Dennie. John Newton Williams, an inventor of office machines, experimented with helicopter flight and with motorcycles in the early 1900's. Jim Dennie owns the sole survivor of Williams' four prototype machines, which were powered by rotating engines mounted in the rear, driving wheel.
• Neracar Motorcycle, 1923, on loan from collector Louis Feltz. The Ner-A-Car Corporation promoted its sheet metal covered bike as an economical two-wheel automobile. The rider arrived "with clothing and shoes neat and clean" after an "exhilarating ride for one-third of a cent a mile."
• Yankee Motorcycle, 1972, on loan from collector John Jamison. The motorcycle industry petered out in New York in the 1920s, but then revived in the late 1960s as the Yankee Motor Company set up shop in Schenectady. John A. Taylor, founder of the company and an off-road motorcycling enthusiast, turned his pastime into a business, introducing a number of new on and off-road motorcycles.

The exhibition also includes engines, catalogs, posters and photos as well as examples of the motorcycles built today by New Yorkers around the State.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Museum is publishing a book, The Museum Industry in New York State: A Concise Encyclopedia of Inventors, Builders and Manufacturers, which will be available in its Gift Shop.

For further information about The Great New York Motorcycle Show the public may call (518) 474-5877.

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*Color slides are available by calling 518-486-2003.

The New York State Museum is open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

ALBANY, N.Y. - The effects of changes in climate and the environment on ancient life in New York is the theme of the next Museum Series talks by New York State Museum researchers. The four talks on Ancient Life and Environments in New York State, are held on consecutive Wednesdays, begin Feb. 7 in the Museum Theater. All programs start at 7 p.m. and are free of charge.

Geologists and paleontologists use their findings on marine life to suggest theories on the evolution of modern animal groups and plants. Also explored will be the causes and effects of changing sea levels through geologic time and how natural gas may originate with ancient reef and beach sands.

The Museum's Center for Stratigraphy and Paleontology focuses on interpreting the regional and global controls on the early history and evolution of the natural environment and life in New York. The Center includes paleobiologists, stratigraphers and other geologists whose work contributes to understanding the rock and fossil succession in New York State and related regions.

The Museum, committed to lifelong learning, is a program of the State Education Department.

Sea-Level Change Through Time
Feb. 7, 7 p.m.

If all of the ice at the earth's poles melted, sea level would rise to the point where Albany, like New York City and other coastal cities, would be under water. Museum geologist Dr. Taury Smith discusses causes and effects of changing sea level through geologic time.

Evolutionary Origin of Animals: When and How in the Fossil Record
Feb. 14, 7 p.m.

Ancient marine rocks of Britain, Morocco, eastern Canada and New York provide valuable data on modern animal groups. Dr. Ed Landing, New York State Paleontologist, summarizes his recent work in these countries and how the findings can determine the evolutionary rates and sites of origin of modern animal groups.

Life's Nexus? "The Whole Megillah'' of 350 Million Year-Old Seas and Fossils in New York
Feb 21, 7 p.m.

Using classic paleontological to modern geochemical techniques, Museum geologist Dr. Charles A. Ver Straeten relates updrift in the ancestral Appalachians, sea-level changes, climate and the origin of land plants to the Devonian ("Age of Fish'') fossil record in New York.

Black Gold in the Empire State
Feb. 28, 7 p.m.

New York State's next great energy source may originate with ancient reef and beach sands. Museum geologist Richard Nyahay talks about the reefs and sand deposited during the Early and Middle Paleozoic that helped produce the natural gas recently discovered in central New York. During the 1880s, the state was the nation's number one producer of oil and gas. Production declined significantly after World War II, but these new discoveries have the industry talking about New York again. Nyahay will discuss the geology of New York's hydrocarbon reservoirs and the history of the state's oil and gas industry.

ALBANY, N.Y. - The New York State Museum Institute has named four upstate business leaders to its Board of Trustees.

The Board of Trustees oversees the New York State Museum Institute, which was founded in 1985. The Institute, a private, non-profit arm of the Museum, was established to ensure that valuable resources from the private sector are encouraged and sustained to advance the programs of the New York State Museum. The Institute also oversees the Museum's membership program.

"I am confident that the Institute Board's priorities of identifying and cultivating new revenue sources, increasing awareness and statewide presence, and increasing participation in partnerships will be greatly enhanced with their support," said James B. Howe, the president of the Board of Trustees.

The new trustees on the 20-member board are: James E. Blau, the president of Hudson Valley Container Co.; Kathleen A. Coddington, the Director of Advertising at the Albany Times Union; Tom Young, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Telergy, Inc.; and Michael Zarcone, Vice-President and Secretary to the Board at MetLife. Trustees are invited to serve two three-year terms.

"A committed and involved Board has been essential to the Institute's ability to enhance the private funds available for Museum programs and exhibitions. Our new trustees will be critical to this mission," said Laurie Roberts, the executive director of the Institute.

Blau resides in Loudonville and is president of Hudson Valley Container Co. He is active in numerous non-profit organizations and various local and national business groups including the Albany Institute of History and Art and the Troy Family YMCA Board of Directors. He is a Trustee of the Albany Rural Cemetery, serves on the Board of Directors of Pruyn House and is past Director of the Capital District YMCA.

Coddington has been the Director of Advertising at the Albany Times Union since March 1999. Prior to rejoining the Times Union last year, Kathleen was Director of Advertising at the Hartford Courant, Connecticut's largest newspaper, where she was chairwoman of the Courant's Staff Development and Leadership Committee. She is a member of the Hartford Rotary and Connecticut's Permanent Commission on the Status of Women.

Before joining Telergy, Young was the Chairman of the New York Power Authority where he oversaw an organizational restructuring resulting in spending reductions totaling $70 million. During his two terms as Mayor of Syracuse, the city earned national recognition from two presidential administrations for outstanding achievements in urban revitalization and housing and neighborhood renewal. From 1975 to 1985, he was Executive Director of the New York State Fair.

Zarcone is the Vice-President and Secretary to the Board at MetLife. In his prior capacity as the principal lobbyist for MetLife, he was the company's representative on legislative and regulatory issues before the New York State Legislature and the New York State Insurance Department. He is a member of the New York State Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Bar and the Bar of the District of Columbia.

The New York State Museum Institute has named four upstate business leaders to its Board of Trustees.

The Board of Trustees oversees the New York State Museum Institute, which was founded in 1985. The Institute, a private, non-profit arm of the Museum, was established to ensure that valuable resources from the private sector are encouraged and sustained to advance the programs of the New York State Museum. The Institute also oversees the Museum's membership program.

"I am confident that the Institute Board's priorities of identifying and cultivating new revenue sources, increasing awareness and statewide presence, and increasing participation in partnerships will be greatly enhanced with their support," said James B. Howe, the president of the Board of Trustees.

The new trustees on the 20-member board are: James E. Blau, the president of Hudson Valley Container Co.; Kathleen A. Coddington, the Director of Advertising at the Albany Times Union; Tom Young, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Telergy, Inc.; and Michael Zarcone, Vice-President and Secretary to the Board at MetLife. Trustees are invited to serve two three-year terms.

"A committed and involved Board has been essential to the Institute's ability to enhance the private funds available for Museum programs and exhibitions. Our new trustees will be critical to this mission," said Laurie Roberts, the executive director of the Institute.

Blau resides in Loudonville and is president of Hudson Valley Container Co. He is active in numerous non-profit organizations and various local and national business groups including the Albany Institute of History and Art and the Troy Family YMCA Board of Directors. He is a Trustee of the Albany Rural Cemetery, serves on the Board of Directors of Pruyn House and is past Director of the Capital District YMCA.

Coddington has been the Director of Advertising at the Albany Times Union since March 1999. Prior to rejoining the Times Union last year, Kathleen was Director of Advertising at the Hartford Courant, Connecticut's largest newspaper, where she was chairwoman of the Courant's Staff Development and Leadership Committee. She is a member of the Hartford Rotary and Connecticut's Permanent Commission on the Status of Women.

Before joining Telergy, Young was the Chairman of the New York Power Authority where he oversaw an organizational restructuring resulting in spending reductions totaling $70 million. During his two terms as Mayor of Syracuse, the city earned national recognition from two presidential administrations for outstanding achievements in urban revitalization and housing and neighborhood renewal. From 1975 to 1985, he was Executive Director of the New York State Fair.

Zarcone is the Vice-President and Secretary to the Board at MetLife. In his prior capacity as the principal lobbyist for MetLife, he was the company's representative on legislative and regulatory issues before the New York State Legislature and the New York State Insurance Department. He is a member of the New York State Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Bar and the Bar of the District of Columbia.

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ALBANY, NY -- Scientists and naturalists from around the Northeast will meet from Oct. 14-17 at the New York State Museum to discuss ways to help preserve imperiled freshwater mussels, restore butterfly species and read a 350 million-year-old sea floor.

Those are a few of the many topics to be discussed at the New York Natural History Conference V: A Forum for Current Research. The conference will examine natural history research in the state, focusing attention on critical research needs. There will be a special session devoted to invasive plants, such as purple loosestrife. The biology of this plant as well as what policies need to be developed by agencies, particularly state agencies, will be discussed.

"This conference will be a great opportunity for many natural history scientists and researchers to get together and share their research findings," conference organizer Ron Gill said. "Any person who is interested in some aspect of New York's natural history is welcome to attend."

David Doubilet, the award-winning National Geographic underwater photographer, will be the conference's keynote speaker. He will speak Thursday, Oct. 15. The time will be announced at a later date. His presentation is free and open to the public.

Natural history artists - who often work side-by-side with scientists to render plants and organisms - will also participate in the conference. An exhibit of their work Focus on Nature V: Natural History Illustration will be displayed in the State Museum's West Gallery from Oct. 15 through Dec. 15.

Some highlights of the conference workshops, which are open to the public for a fee:

• Freshwater Mussels of New York:
  Freshwater mussels were once abundant in New York state. Now, due to pollution they've become imperiled. And some have even become extinct. A workshop will be held to discuss the future of mussels.
  This workshop will cover the collection, preservation and identification of 50 species of pearly mussels as well as life histories, distribution and ecology. Participants may bring their own shells to be identified. Presented by David Strayer of the Institute for Ecosystem Studies. Oct. 14, 1-5 p.m.
• Butterfly Friendly and Beyond:
  Restoring and nurturing butterfly presence isn't just about planting flowers that attract butterflies. It is about a whole concept of maintaining an environment where butterflies are permanent residents. The workshop will focus on maintaining a diverse butterfly habitat. Lepidopterist David Bouton will present the workshop. Bouton, who has traveled throughout the world studying and photographing butterflies, will also display his photographs in the illustration show. Oct. 17, noon-5 p.m.
• Dragonfly and Damselfly larvae of New York:
  Ecological and conservation issues regarding dragonflies and damselflies will be featured in this workshop. Participants can bring their own specimens for identification. Oct. 17, 1 p.m.-4 p.m.
• The Museum's Walls: Record of a 350 Million-year-old sea floor:
  Llenroc Stone ("Cornell" spelled backward) from Ithaca was used to construct the lower walls of the State Museum and the Empire State Plaza. Dr. Ed Landing, state paleontologist with the geological survey, will show how you can "read" the evidence from these rocks for powerful bottom currents, giant storm waves and a food chain based on water-logged land-plant debris and large worm-like animals. Oct. 17, from 1-2 p.m. and from 3-4 p.m.
• Botanical and Habitat Photography:
  Outdoor photographer Frank Knight will give a slideshow presentation on his methods for photographing plants and their habitats. A brief field trip around the museum will follow. Some of the topics include close-up techniques, use of flash outdoors, depth of field control and equipment needed. Oct. 14, 1-4 p.m.
• Color Theory Applied to Natural History Illustrations:
  Louisa Rawle Tine, instructor at the NY Botanical Gardens will discuss the confusing complexities of color theory. She will focus on mixing and using colors typically found in nature, such as greens and browns. Oct. 17, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Registration payment, $65 ($45 for students), is due by Sept. 14. Workshop registration fees vary. For more information, visit the State Museum's website: www.nysm.nysed.gov.

ALBANY, N.Y. - The New York Natural History Conference VI will take place at the New York State Museum from April 26 through April 29. The biennial conference updates scientists, educators and students on natural history research in northeastern North America, focusing on New York State.

The Museum is hosting the conference which is organized by the New York State Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI).

"The conference addresses paleontology, archeology, ecology, conservation and many other disciplines," BRI biodiversity specialist Karen Frolich said. "It also forges links among students, government agencies and universities. The conference creates a lively, exciting atmosphere at the museum, filling the exhibit halls with active researchers. The most exciting thing about it, though, is that it often results in new ideas for groundbreaking projects and research," Frolich said.

The keynote speaker at the conference will be Dr. Daniel Fisher whose talk will address "Mastodont and Mammoth Extinction in the Great Lakes Region of North America." Dr. Fisher is Professor of Geological Sciences and Curator of Paleontology in the Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University in geological sciences, and taught at the University of Rochester for several years before joining the faculty of the University of Michigan in 1979.

His current research focuses on the paleobiology and extinction of mastodonts and mammoths and also on use of temporal data in analyzing evolutionary relationships.

The Natural History Conference coincides with Focus on Nature VI: Natural History Illustration, an exhibition of scientific illustration that will be on display from April 26 through July 30 in the Photography Gallery.

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*For more information on the conference, visit www.nysm.nysed.gov/nhc.html

ALBANY, N.Y. –– As winter enters its final and cruelest leg, it's hard to think of summer blooms. Let the State Museum change your outlook with New York in Bloom - to be held 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday, Feb. 19, through Sunday, Feb. 21.

The flower show is the main fundraiser for the Museum's after-school programs for city youth, the Museum Club and its teen extension, the Discovery Squad.

New York in Bloom features about 60 local exhibitors, including many professional floral designers. During New York in Bloom, the Museum charges $2 for adults (children 12 and under are free) to access exhibit halls, including Treasures of the Wunsch Americana Foundation and The Weitsman Stoneware Collection. Curator John Scherer will lead gallery tours of those two exhibits at 2 and 4 p.m. on Feb. 20 and Feb. 21. Other exhibits providing the backdrop for the flower show include: Contemporary New York State Crafts 1999; We Shall Overcome: Photographs from America's Civil Rights Era; and "I See the Promised Land," a mural created by the youth in the Museum's programs and artist Tim Rollins. It is based on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous speech.

New York in Bloom committee member Evelyn Sturdevan will lead special flower arranging demonstrations at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Feb. 20 and Feb. 21.

A preview gala will be held at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 18. Doc and Helen Rivett, enthusiastic supporters and volunteers for New York in Bloom, will be honored. Tickets for the gala are available at the Benefactor Level for $80, the Supporter Level for $60, or the Junior Level (age 35 or younger) for $40.

A flower arranging demonstration and gourmet luncheon are planned for Friday, Feb. 19. Designer Frank Laning of Chappaqua, known for taking flowers and creating still lifes, will lecture. The $40 fee includes lunch, valet parking, and admission to the show and the demonstration.

"This is one of the Museum's most important events. It helps fund a vital component of our programs – the Museum Club,'' Museum Institute Executive Director Laurie Roberts said.

The Museum Club and the Discovery Squad bring about 75 youths to the museum during the hours often cited as the times children are most at risk. At the Museum, they help develop academic and cultural activities that link the Museum exhibits to curriculum, current events and social issues. There are tutors available for homework, and to help improve math and reading skills - which helps fulfill goals of the State Education Department.

The teen extension of the Museum Club, the Discovery Squad, works throughout the Museum with mentors to learn job skills and knowledge of the workforce. They may work as a curatorial assistant, an assistant lab technician, a Museum shop employee or a gallery teaching instructor.

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*For more information or to reserve tickets, please call 518/474-5801.

ALBANY, N.Y. - The New York State Museum will be hosting the 10th anniversary of its annual celebration of flowers known as New York in Bloom, a fund-raiser for its after-school programs, the Museum Club and the Discovery Squad. New York in Bloom will be open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, February 23, and 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, February 24 and Sunday, February 25.

An event that continues to grow in stature and significance with each passing year, New York in Bloom is one of the most heavily attended of the Museum's annual programs and a tradition in the community. It consists of elaborate, inventive floral arrangements by garden club members and amateur and professional designers from across the state. Participants in the event attempt to create arrangements that will thematically complement and even enhance the Museum's exhibitions.

This year's contributors face the challenge of tying arrangements in with Berenice Abbott's Changing New York, a display of photographs that document Depression-era New York City, and The Great New York Motorcycle Show, an exhibition of classic motorcycles dating from the 1890s to the present.

The Museum Club combines a commitment to underserved children in the City of Albany with hands-on, interactive learning opportunities that are facilitated by Museum staff and teenage assistants known as the Discovery Squad. The Museum Club and Discovery Squad programs offer educational enrichment, tutoring, behind-the-scenes views of Museum exhibitions and, for the teens, opportunities to work with scientists and other professionals as they prepare for college. The Museum Club/Discovery Squad program has been nationally recognized by the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities as a "model program serving underserved youth during the after school hours."

Mayor Gerald D. Jennings is the Honoree for this extra special 10th year event. The Mayor and his wife, Mary Ann, will serve as Honorary Chairpersons.

"Mary Ann and I are honored to serve as this year's Honorary Chairs of New York in Bloom," Mayor Jennings said. "The availability of after school programs for our underserved youth is of great importance to us and this event brings the tremendous educational resources of the Museum to these young people through the Museum Club and Discovery Squad programs. We are grateful to all of you who support it. We particularly want to thank the Museum staff that develop and administer these outstanding programs."

There will be a gala dinner reception at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, February 23, with cocktails and catering provided by the Glen Sanders Mansion. Valet parking will be available; black tie optional. The public may call (518) 474-0068 for reservations by February 15.

The admission fee is $2 for adults. Children under 12 and accompanied by an adult will be admitted free. Tickets for New York in Bloom may be purchased at the door.

ALBANY, N.Y. - Photographers conveyed the striking images of the Civil Rights Era that galvanized a country. Those moments are captured in "We Shall Overcome: Photographs from America's Civil Rights Era" on view at the New York State Museum's Photography Gallery from Jan. 15 to Feb 28.

Photographer Gordon Parks, the internationally acclaimed Life Magazine photojournalist and director of films including the "The Learning Tree" and "Shaft," will speak about his role on Wednesday, Feb. 17 at 5 p.m. in the Museum Theatre. Parks' works featured in the exhibition are drawn from an assignment from Life in 1963 when he traveled with Malcolm X. As part of the State Education Department, the Museum is committed to providing educational opportunities through exhibits like "We Shall Overcome."

The roles of Parks and several other prominent American photographers are explored in "We Shall Overcome" as they documented one of the most decisive periods in this nation's history. The 80 black-and-white photographs focus on key events and personalities of the Civil Rights Era (1954-1968).

"We Shall Overcome" was developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, and curated by Robert Phelan of Salem, N.Y., an art historian, museum curator, attorney and former director of CREED Photos (a database for civil rights). Phelan teaches a class at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst titled "Legal and Extra Legal Strategies and the American Civil Rights Movement."

Works in "We Shall Overcome" are by some of America's most thoughtful and gifted photographers. In addition to Parks and fellow Life photographer, Charles Moore; the exhibition features Magnum photographers Bob Adelman and Leonard Freed; then-staff photographer for the Nation of Islam, Robert Sengstacke; and Black Star photographers Matt Herron and Bob Fitch.

Drawn from the personal collections of the artists, these works bring the viewer into the presence of the people and events of the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

The striking photographs in the exhibition are juxtaposed with the words of Martin Luther King Jr., James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Harner and Malcolm X.

"We Shall Overcome" ends with a selection of photographs of King taken by each of the photographers.

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*Call 518/474-0079 for slides or to arrange interviews with the photographers and curator.

ALBANY, NY - Experts at the New York State Museum today unveiled Pearl, the facial reconstruction of a Colonial woman based on a skull found in downtown Albany.

She was nicknamed Pearl since her coffin, along with her skull and other bones, were discovered at the corner of Pearl and Howard streets in April 1998 by Museum archaeologists, who monitored the South Pearl Street reconstruction by the state Department of Transportation.

A Face from Colonial Albany will be exhibited in the main lobby of the Museum beginning Dec. 17.

"There is a mystique to Pearl. We don't know all the answers about her life, but she gets more people to think about what it was like to live in upstate New York 250-300 years ago," Director Cliff Siegfried said.

The woman's skull and other bones were found with the remains of two men at the site of a former Lutheran cemetery. They apparently had unmarked graves or only their markers were removed when the cemetery was relocated.

"This woman represents an important group of people in the history of this city -- a female worker not known from historical documents and buried in an unmarked grave," said Museum archaeologist Charles Fisher, who led the project. "The New York State Museum has a long tradition of creating life casts for exhibits. This builds on that tradition and is very exciting because it is based on actual physical remains."

Gay Malin, a museum preparator and sculptor, was given the job of bringing Pearl to life. Drawing from the expertise of State Police forensic experts, researchers at Yale University and paintings from that era, Malin painstakingly reconstructed the woman's face onto a cast of a skull she had taken from the original. She added tissue, muscles and skin using clay and various polymers. A more detailed account of the process can be found at the State Museum's website at www.nysm.nysed.gov/arccrsppearlstfacial.html

"It's a way of bringing a long-forgotten face from the past to life," Malin said. "To see it take shape, to see it go from bone to flesh, was very exciting. It is my hope that someone seeing the reconstruction may recognize her as an ancestor."

Before the cast of the skull was made, archaeologists studied the bones and skull to learn more about the individual.

According to Fisher and other scientists working on the project, Pearl probably died in her early 40s about 250-300 years ago. She was Caucasian and of European ancestry. She stood about 5'1''. Her dental health was extremely poor and she had lost 63 percent of her teeth before death. She had no teeth on either side of her jaw, which was most important because the loss of those teeth would evidence themselves in the final reconstruction as sunken cheeks. Of her remaining teeth, the condition was poor and she had several abscesses.

During her lifetime, she suffered from acute infections, rickets, sinusitis, an upper respiratory infection, arthritis and gout. She was also very muscular because the ridges on her long bones were very developed.

Records regarding the Lutheran cemetery that once occupied that section of South Pearl Street just south of State Street are incomplete and researchers may never know her real name.

The casts will be kept as part of the Museum's collections and will be used in future exhibits and education programs in keeping with the Museum's role within the State Education Department. Pearl's remains were reburied during a ceremony in May with Albany's First Lutheran Church, the oldest congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

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ALBANY, NY - Warhol, Lichtenstein, Oldenburg and Wesselmann. Some of the greatest names in Pop Art are coming to the New York State Museum thanks to a generous grant from Fleet, museum and bank officials announced today.

Pop Art: Selections from The Museum of Modern Art will be featured at the State Museum, a program of the New York State Education Department, from Feb. 26 to May 2, 1999, in the first of a series of exhibits from New York City art museums through 2001 sponsored by Fleet.

The Fleet Great Art Exhibition and Education Program has been made possible through a $450,000 grant, most to be used over the next three years to bring exceptional shows to the State Museum.

"The State Museum is thrilled to present these great works of art from the world class collection of The Museum of Modern Art," said Mark Schaming, the State Museum's Director of Exhibitions. "Our visitors will have the unique opportunity to view memorable paintings and sculptures never before seen in the Capital District in this ongoing series of exhibits."

"Fleet is very proud to partner with the New York State Museum in support of the Fleet Great Art Series," stated Herm Ames, President of Fleet National Bank (New York Region). "At Fleet, we are committed to making arts and cultural events accessible in our community. By bringing important art exhibits to the Museum and the Capital District, we are providing an opportunity for our children to not only study examples of great art in their schools, but to see them in person; for our senior citizens to visit a local museum rather than make a long journey to New York City; and for visitors to regard the Capital District as more of a culturally significant destination. At Fleet, we are committed to providing these art exhibits free to the public, ensuring that truly everyone has the opportunity to experience these important collections."

The series could not have been made possible without the leadership of state Sen. Roy M. Goodman, R-Manhattan, who initiated these exhibits by encouraging the museums to share their treasures.

"We are deeply grateful to The Museum of Modern Art for making available this marvelous exhibit of work by Pop artists," Goodman said. "We are delighted that this great museum is part of our program to make important art available to the public at the State Museum in Albany."

The State Museum will offer educational programs for both adults and children centered on Pop Art and the continuing shows brought to Albany through the Fleet Great Art series.

"With this very generous gift, Fleet once again demonstrates its commitment to excellence in education and exhibitions in our community," Museum Institute Executive Director Laurie Roberts said.

Pop Art will feature 28 works from MoMA's renowned collection - all created in the U.S. during the 1960s - the defining decade of this movement.

The exhibition will include key figures in Pop Art, such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Indiana and Tom Wesselmann.

Some of the highlights include Warhol's famous series of thirty-two Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962, and Self-Portrait, 1966; Wesselmann's well-known Still Life #30; and Oldenburg's Giant Soft Fan, 1966-67.

"The New York State Museum and The Museum of Modern Art share a commitment to education in this state, so we couldn't be more pleased that Pop Art will be shown in Albany, our state capital. This is the first in what we hope will be a series of exhibitions designed to share MoMA's world-renowned collection with the people of Albany," remarked Glenn D. Lowry, the director of MoMA.

Along with Goodman, Harry M. Rosenfeld, editor-at-large of the Times Union of Albany, helped the State Museum reach this exciting partnership with these institutions.

"The new funding helps to assure the long-range presentation of the finest art works in the Great Art series," Rosenfeld said. "The contributions are greatly appreciated as the State Museum develops its growing relationships with all the world-class museums in New York City for the cultural enrichment of everyone residing in the Capital Region, as well for visitors who come our way."

For slides please call, 518-474-0079

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ALBANY, N.Y. -- Pop Art revolutionized the art world. Now, it's here at the New York State Museum.

Pop Art: Selections from The Museum of Modern Art will be featured at the State Museum, a program of the New York State Education Department, from Feb. 26 to May 2, 1999.

The show kicks off the Fleet Great Art Exhibition and Education Program, a series of exhibits from New York City art museums to be held at the State Museum through 2001.

Some of the highlights include Warhol's famous series of thirty-two Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962, and Self-Portrait, 1966; Wesselmann's well-known Still Life #30; and Oldenburg's Giant Soft Fan, 1966-67.

The State Museum will offer educational programs for both adults and children centered on Pop Art. Those include providing an artist in residence to lead guided tours on weekends in March and April. Teaching artist Tom Gagnon will also work with the public in a special program area to help visitors create their own works of art. He plans to visit schools preparing students for their Pop Art experience at the State Museum

Special teaching training opportunities will be offered, including one by the State Education Department's Assessment Institute - Connections: Visual Arts Learning Standards and Student Learning, March 18-19.

The Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company will present a free one hour family performance of dance works that, like Pop Art, makes art from everyday objects and ideas, April 17 at 2 p.m.

Curated by Anne Umland, Pop Art will feature 28 works from MoMA's renowned collection - all created in the U.S. during the 1960s - the defining decade of this movement.

The exhibition will include key figures in Pop Art, such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Indiana and Tom Wesselmann.

The series is funded through a $450,000 grant from Fleet, most to be used over the next three years to bring exceptional shows to the State Museum. An additional $100,000 challenge grant from The Hearst Foundation, Inc. will help the Museum further strengthen the program.

The series was made possible with the leadership of state Sen. Roy M. Goodman, R-Manhattan, who initiated these exhibits by encouraging the partnership between the State Museum and the great art museums of New York City.

Along with Goodman, Harry M. Rosenfeld, editor-at-large of the Times Union of Albany, was instrumental in assisting the State Museum for the cultural enrichment of everyone residing in the Capital Region.

For slides please call, 518/474-0079

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ALBANY, N.Y. Dirt roads. Front porches. General stores. Crossroads Images: Postcard Views of Rural New York will take State Museum visitors back to a simpler time, a time before four-lane highways crisscrossed the state and strip malls dotted the landscape.

Postcard Views can be seen at the Museum from June 18 to Jan. 2, 2000, in the Photo Gallery. The enlarged images will be taken from the Museum's extensive collection of Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company postcards. Eastern photographers, based in Belfast, Maine, traveled by car in upstate New York about 1916, 1920,1925, 1932 and 1935 capturing images of rural life for use on postcards. The Museum's collection totals 2,276 cards, mostly of western, central and northern New York, drawn from four sample albums.

"They're nowhere and everywhere," curator Geoffrey Stein said. These were places where the larger publishers didn't go, like Cato, Altona and Odessa, he said. The images show a time when many people's lives centered around these crossroads communities.

The earliest views of rural New York depict an established agricultural community with few changes since 1875. Some of the postcards show gas pumps or community water springs right in the middle of roads.

"But things then changed very quickly with the introduction of the automobile allowing people to shop or work in urban areas far from home," Stein said. The later cards document those changes, often demonstrating how many hamlets declined.

Several postcards show a photographer's car parked on Main Street with the back door open for stowing equipment a quick getaway once the shot was captured, Stein said.

The 261 postcards used in the exhibit will be divided into 10 sections: Landscape, Commerce, Institutions, Houses, Churches and Lodges, Rural Industries, Social and Cultural Offerings, Public Works, Travelers' Accommodations and March of Time (showing before and after images).

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*For slides, please call 518/474-0079.

ALBANY, NY -- There's a rare plant emerging in New York state, thanks in part to an unconventional gardening tool: the sports utility vehicle.

Botanists at the New York State Museum recently found terrestrial starwort -- considered extremely endangered in New York state -- growing in unexpected numbers in Sterling Forest in Orange County, where they are documenting the plants of the new State Park as part of an on-going State Museum project.

"The tiny plants, resembling green pinheads on a string, had only been known to grow in three places in the State until recently," Richard Mitchell, the State Botanist, said today. Now, they've been found in at least a dozen places. Terrestrial starwort prefers moist, muddy conditions and does well around water and pastures in the South and Midwest.

"It's apparently invading New York," Mitchell said, attributing the plant's success to the warm, moist winter. It has also been spotted in areas frequented by bears, which seem to be fertilizing the plant with their droppings.

"What it portends is that southern plants may be migrating northward due to global warming," Mitchell said.

While the existence of the aquatic plants neither harms nor helps the environment, Mitchell their new occurrences an oddity especially since they seem to thrive in trafficked areas, flourishing in ruts and puddles created by trucks and sports utility vehicles. "The seeds are apparently being picked up in the treads of the vehicles and carried to new disturbed roadways," Mitchell said.

In addition to other documented sites, the plants were most recently found near Greenwood Lake in Orange County, at Olana, the state historical site in Columbia County and along the Hudson River near the Greene County-Ulster County line. The Natural Heritage Program currently lists this plant in the most endangered category (S1). Its rarity status will now be reduced to a lower level. "I will stop short of making management recommendations that include bears and SUVs," Mitchell said.

ALBANY, NY -- The rich legacy of African American photographers is explored in the exhibition Reflections in Black: Smithsonian African American Photography, The First One Hundred Years, 1842-1942 on view at the New York State Museum from Jan. 25 through March 11, 2001, in the Photography Gallery.

In the early 19th and 20th centuries, African Americans were, in fact, pioneers in the medium: Jules Lion (1810-1866) began producing daguerreotypes in New Orleans in 1840, just one year after the invention of the process. Using Lion's work as a starting point, this exhibition follows the development of African American photography through its first 100 years. The artists in this exhibition immediately understood the new medium's power to create a comprehensive visual legacy and provide support for enlightened social philosophies.

Created by various forms of photographic technique as they were invented, including daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, stereographs, composite printing and flash photography, the images in this exhibition form a technical history of the medium as well as a pictorial history of African American life.

Some of the photographers included in this exhibition are:

• Augustus Washington (1820-1875), a New Jersey native who achieved celebrity status by making daguerreotypes in key New England cities, and in Liberia after his immigration to Africa.
• James Presley Ball (1825-1905), a free black abolitionist who photographed the construction of the Montana state Capitol building and produced thousands of highly prized photographs for an emerging black middle class in Helena, Montana.
• Daniel Freeman (1868-?), a painter and sought-after society photographer who opened his first studio in Washington, D.C., where he taught photography and started the Washington Amateur Art Society. He also represented the District of Columbia in an exhibition at the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta.
• Arthur P. Bedou (1881-1966), a New Orleans native who rose to fame through his portraits of jazz musicians, and for documenting the life of activist and educator, Booker T. Washington.
• Florestine Perrault Collins (1895-1988), who owned and operated a studio in New Orleans from 1920 to 1949, photographing families and visiting World War II soldiers. She opened her first studio in the living room of her home, using relatives as subjects for the kind of portraits that would make her one of Louisiana's most respected photographers.

The First One Hundred Years was originally presented by the Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture as part of the broad exhibition, Reflections in Black: African American Photography: 1840 to the present. That exhibition examined how throughout history, black photographers have played a central role in influencing how African Americans visualized themselves. The exhibition is presented as a series of three thematic sections: The First 100 Years, 1842-1942, Art and Activism, and A History Deconstructed. Reflections in Black, while not a comprehensive survey of the history of African American photographers, presents a context for reflecting on the works of many black photographers whose images weave an extremely rich and diverse collective history.

The Smithsonian curator is Deborah Willis, historian, photographer, and author of the book Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present (Norton, 2000). The exhibition tour is organized by Curatorial Assistance Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, California.

The State Museum is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. It is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's days. A $5 per/family, $2 per person donation is always appreciated.

Notes for Editors:

The exhibition is curated by Deborah Willis, curator of exhibitions at the Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution. Willis's awards and fellowships include a MacArthur Fellowship, The International Center for Photography and the Golden Light Photography Book of the Year. Her past books include VanDerZee: the Portraits of James VanDerZee (1993), Lorna Simpson (1992), J.P. Ball: Daguerrean and Studio Photographer (1992), and Picturing Us: African-American Identity in Photography (1994).

This exhibition was funded in part by Giant Food, Howard University Hospital, and Microsoft, with support from NBC4-Washington, D.C.

The Smithsonian's Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture is devoted to increasing public awareness and understanding of the historical experiences and the cultural expressions of people of African decent. Anacostia Museum was established in 1967 and in 1995 merged with the Smithsonian's Center for African American History and Culture.

Curatorial Assistance Traveling Exhibitions (CATE) is a nonprofit organization creating opportunities for access, outreach, and education in the visual arts through the creation and circulation of diverse and innovative exhibitions for museums and art organizations worldwide. CATE fosters collaborations between public and private resources by developing traveling exhibitions that expand public opportunities to view and experience significant works of art.

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*Color slides are available by calling 518-486-2003.

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Tim Rollins and K.O.S. (Kids of Survival) will lead students from Wednesday, Jan. 27, through Friday, Jan. 29, as they work on an abstract mural based on the speech "I See The Promised Land" by Martin Luther King Jr.

The sessions will take place on each of the days from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the New York State Museum. As part of the State Education Department, the Museum is committed to providing quality education programs.

K.O.S. is a collective of student/artists started in the early 1980s by Rollins, then a special education teacher at Public School 52 in the South Bronx.

He now leads students throughout the world as they install the abstract murals working off literary pieces and speeches, such as "Prometheus Bound" and "I See the Promised Land."

The speech King gave on April 3, 1968, the night before he was assassinated, is a particularly inspirational work that resonates with today's teens, Rollins said.

"I think it was the most prophetic," Rollins said. "This is the generation that would see the "Promised Land" Martin Luther King envisioned. It's a beginning of a new sort of consciousness for America's youth."

The project begins with the students listening to the speech as they read along. About 75 members of the Discovery Squad and the Museum Club, the State Museum's after school programs for neighborhood youth, will participate. Students then are given a slide presentation about the history of the triangle throughout world art. The possible symbolism and meanings of triangles are discussed, along with how the students might use the motif in their collective interpretation of the Rev. King's great final sermon.

Then work on the abstract art form begins. Students sketch triangles on actual pages of the speech, and Rollins asks them to mix acrylic paint in their color of hope to paint the triangles. "You have to have hope to give it a color," he said. The pages then will be affixed to a wall at the State Museum for display.

Future Rollins exhibitions will be held at the Stuck Museum in Munich, Germany, and at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tenn., in the fall of 1999.

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*Reporters requesting interviews with Rollins must make arrangements by calling 518/474-0079.

GREENFIELD, NY - Area Boy Scouts will assist New York State Museum officials this weekend Oct. 10-11 as they clean up Lester Park, a world-famous geological site in Saratoga County that features rare fossils.

Scouts from Saratoga and Rensselaer counties will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday to help kick off Earth Science Week in New York State, which begins Sunday. Renowned New York State Paleontologist Dr. Ed Landing will speak to the scouts at 10 a.m. Saturday.

Landing, who works with the Geological Survey at the State Museum, was recently featured in Earth Story, a series of documentaries produced by the British Broadcasting Corp. for the Learning Channel that described the geological forces that made the Earth what it is today.

Lester Park, a site maintained by the State Museum, is in the process of a makeover. The scouts will be cleaning up garbage and clearing moss and plants from the famous fossils and features.

The work being done will prepare the area for new signs that are being constructed by Museum staff to help people learn more about Lester Park.

"It's part of an important outdoor exhibit visited by dozens of college and university groups," Landing said. "You've got to conserve it the best way that you can."

The site, which is open to the public, is also a perfect place for earth science teachers to bring their students, Landing said.

"The fossils seen there are extremely rare worldwide," Robert Fakundiny, the State Geologist, said.

Of particular interest to researchers, are the blue-green algae stromatolite mounds. They have been illustrated in scientific publications and textbooks as classic examples of these extremely shallow marine developments.

"This is a really unusual paleontological site. They're so well-exposed and so rare," added Fakundiny.

The Park on either side of Petrified Gardens Road has been the topic of numerous scientific articles since the 1860s. It was donated to the state in 1914 by Willard Lester Esq.

Directions: From downtown Saratoga Springs take 9N west. Take a left on Middle Grove Road. Then take a left on Lester Park Road (Also known as Petrified Gardens Road). Continue for about 500 feet.

GREENFIELD, NY - Area Boy Scouts will assist New York State Museum officials this weekend Oct. 10-11 as they clean up Lester Park, a world-famous geological site in Saratoga County that features rare fossils.

Scouts from Saratoga and Rensselaer counties will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday to help kick off Earth Science Week in New York State, which begins Sunday. Renowned New York State Paleontologist Dr. Ed Landing will speak to the scouts at 10 a.m. Saturday.

Landing, who works with the Geological Survey at the State Museum, was recently featured in Earth Story, a series of documentaries produced by the British Broadcasting Corp. for the Learning Channel that described the geological forces that made the Earth what it is today.

Lester Park, a site maintained by the State Museum, is in the process of a makeover. The scouts will be cleaning up garbage and clearing moss and plants from the famous fossils and features.

The work being done will prepare the area for new signs that are being constructed by Museum staff to help people learn more about Lester Park.

"It's part of an important outdoor exhibit visited by dozens of college and university groups," Landing said. "You've got to conserve it the best way that you can."

The site, which is open to the public, is also a perfect place for earth science teachers to bring their students, Landing said.

"The fossils seen there are extremely rare worldwide," Robert Fakundiny, the State Geologist, said.

Of particular interest to researchers, are the blue-green algae stromatolite mounds. They have been illustrated in scientific publications and textbooks as classic examples of these extremely shallow marine developments.

"This is a really unusual paleontological site. They're so well-exposed and so rare," added Fakundiny.

The Park on either side of Petrified Gardens Road has been the topic of numerous scientific articles since the 1860s. It was donated to the state in 1914 by Willard Lester Esq.

Directions: From downtown Saratoga Springs take 9N west. Take a left on Middle Grove Road. Then take a left on Lester Park Road (Also known as Petrified Gardens Road). Continue for about 500 feet.

ALBANY, N.Y. – A new two-day exhibition -- “From New York to the White House, New York Residents Who Became President” -- will open Presidents’ Day in the lobby of the New York State Museum featuring George Washington’s 1796 farewell address.

Open Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 20-21, the exhibition will honor the nation’s first president as well as New York’s political leaders who rose to the presidency.

The exhibition will include several important artifacts from the George Washington Collection at the New York State Library. Among these will be an original draft of George Washington’s Farewell Address, penned in his hand, which was sent to Alexander Hamilton for comment and revision on May 15, 1796. It was rescued from the fire that ravaged the State Capitol in 1911. One of General Washington’s dress swords will also be on display. According to Washington family tradition, the sword was presented to Washington by Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. The sword was purchased by the State of New York directly from Washington’s family in 1871 and is depicted in the Washington portrait that hangs in the United States House of Representatives. The display will also include leaves from an extremely rare volume entitled “A Representation of the Cloathing of His Majesty's Household and of all the Forces upon the Establishments of Great Britain and Ireland,” 1742. This collection of colored engravings of British military uniforms was given to Washington in 1787.

Eight New York residents who became president are recognized including Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, Ulysses S. Grant, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower..

Established in 1836, the State Museum is a program of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open Monday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

ALBANY, NY – Preserving Family History: The Heritage of an Albany County Family opens at the New York State Museum Saturday, Feb. 11th, showcasing an unusual collection of heirlooms gathered by eight generations of one family over a span of 250 years.

Many families preserve their history by saving treasured family possessions from previous generations. This exhibition provides an example of what types of objects a family collects and why.

Notable for its longevity, this family collection includes furniture, silver, glass, portraits, textiles, photo albums and other treasured heirlooms gathered by the Tompkins family from Coeyman’s Hollow. Beginning with the possessions of Andries Ten Eyck, who settled in southern Albany County in 1749, the collection of this middle-class farming family grew as it passed through the Ten Eycks and Vanderzees to the Tompkins family. Until 1977 the collection remained in three different houses within a mile of each other. The Tompkins cared for and added to the collection for several more generations before donating it to the Museum.

This family, like many others, saved their belongings for a variety of reasons. Framed portraits, jewelry or objects of cultural heritage commemorate major family events. Family bibles, decorative marriage certificates or diaries provide a record of those events. Handmade items, such as a quilt or intricately stitched socks, express the personality of a family member. Other objects, such as fine silver, jewelry and handcrafted furniture may have been saved because they conveyed a family’s status, symbolic of social and economic success. The most important motive for family collecting is to remind families that they are joined together forever in an unbreakable bond.

The Tompkins family collection grew as the Ten Eycks, Vanderzees and Tompkins married into other local families. It remained in the family homestead in Coeymans Hollow, 15 miles south of Albany, until John Tompkins (1919-1977) inherited the farm in 1966. John ran the farm while his brother Stephen (1914-1998) went to college and eventually became a vice president for Chrysler Motor Corporation. When John died the farm was sold to the Sycamore Country Club. The farmhouse was demolished but the

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huge barn was saved and is now the clubhouse.

Stephen Tompkins became the next family curator and the collection moved to Detroit and then to Arizona. He donated some items from the collection but the bulk of the collection was donated by his widow, Georgann Byrd-Tompkins, after his death in 1998. Stephen’s daughter, Polly Tompkins, also donated items in 2002 and 2004. Mrs. Byrd Tompkins has also set up a Museum endowment for the acquisition, interpretation and preservation of New York’s early Dutch material culture.

The items on display are representative of the hundreds of objects in the Museum’s entire Tompkins collection. Those exhibited include the core of the collection inherited by John and Stephen, which is a grouping of early New York Dutch furniture that furnished the 1749 home of ancestor Andries Ten Eyck (1718-1802). These include a Dutch Kast, a large cupboard made in Albany County used to store linens and valuables; a two-drawer blanket chest and a pair of Hudson Valley side chairs, branded with Ten Eyck’s initials. Among the many other items are a quilt made by Jane Ten Eyck (1783-1827); Victorian bracelets, rings and stickpins; tableware and homespun linen sheets and blankets, bearing family initials, and a pair of hand-knit stockings, initialed and dated the year they were made in 1863.

The exhibition points out the importance of family collections, which often form the foundation of many museums and historical societies across New York State and throughout the world. As the Tompkins experience shows, the collecting process continues only if there is an interested family member, at least in every other generation, committed to preserving the family’s heirlooms.

The New York State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. Started in 1836, the Museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. The State Museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

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ALBANY, N.Y. The New York State Museum will put more than 200 Shaker artifacts on display from Nov. 5, 1999, to Jan. 2, 2000, during A Shaker Legacy: The Shaker Collection at the New York State Museum in the West Gallery.

The State Museum has perhaps the largest collection of Shaker objects owned by any museum. In fact, Shakers themselves helped curators from 1926 to 1943 acquire this vast selection that includes more than 100,000 Shaker objects. The time was right. Shakers at Watervliet, Mt. Lebanon and other eastern communities were seeing their population dwindle, and sought to preserve their heritage and culture.

"We started the Shaker craze back in 1926," said John Scherer, associate curator of decorative arts, who is organizing the exhibit. "We were avant-garde collecting Shaker before it was in vogue. The important thing about this collection is that it wasn't second-hand. We collected it from the source so we have the stories about these artifacts first-hand."

The exhibit will be about the artifacts as much as how the Museum collected them.

It became imperative to preserve the Shaker heritage after Albany County purchased the property of the Watervliet settlement for the Ann Lee Home and what is now the Albany International Airport.

"People were leaving. They couldn't maintain their huge land holdings, they had to liquidate, so to speak," Scherer said.

The Shaker Legacy, with funding provided by Niagara Mohawk and Agway Energy Products, will display photos of the Watervliet settlement and how the furniture and machinery featured in the exhibit were used. It will also detail how Charles Adams, the director of the State Museum from 1926 to 1943, had the foresight to preserve this important American culture.

The Shakers weren't just talented furniture builders; they were innovators and savvy business people who held many patents. Their contributions included the flat broom and the clothespin. They claimed to have invented the circular saw, as well as being the first to place seeds in paper envelopes.

Featured in this exhibit will not only be decorative items like furniture, but also the raw materials and tools used to create these beautiful, yet simple, pieces.

The only intact Fountain Stone, used for religious rituals, that survives from any Shaker community will also be on display. The stone was discovered when the state was building the Craig Developmental Center at the site of the Groveland Shakers community in Livingston County.

Many of these items will be displayed for the first time since 1982, when the Museum commemorated the 50th anniversary of its first Shaker exhibit with a major retrospective: Community Industries of the Shakers: A New Look.

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*For slides, please call 518/474-0079.

ALBANY, N.Y. - The New York State Museum's Shaker exhibition was so popular last fall, it's coming back for an encore this summer.

An expanded version featuring more than 200 Shaker artifacts will return from July 29 through Oct. 22, 2000, during A Shaker Legacy: The Shaker Collection at the New York State Museum in Exhibition Hall.

The State Museum has perhaps the largest collection of Shaker objects owned by any museum. In fact, Shakers themselves helped curators from 1926 to 1943 acquire this vast selection that includes more than 100,000 Shaker objects. The time was right. Shakers at Watervliet, Mt. Lebanon and other eastern communities were seeing their population dwindle, and sought to preserve their heritage and culture.

"The Shaker craze started here -- back in 1926," said John Scherer, associate curator of decorative arts. "The exhibition was very popular. It generated a lot of interest, but was only up for a short period. We thought we'd bring it back for people who didn't have an opportunity to see it."

The exhibition will be about the artifacts as much as how the Museum collected them.

"The reason this collection is so important is that we got it from the source," Scherer said. "The Shakers were here to tell us how the objects were made and how they were used."

Additionally, never-before-seen photographs by William F. Winter (1899-1939) will be displayed in a separate gallery. Winter, a Schenectady photographer, documented the Shakers and sparked the interest of the Museum's director in collecting Shaker artifacts.

The Shaker Legacy will feature photos of the Watervliet settlement and how the furniture and machinery exhibited were used. It will also detail how Charles Adams, the director of the State Museum from 1926 to 1943, had the foresight to preserve this important American culture.

Featured in this exhibition will not only be decorative items like furniture, but also the raw materials and tools used to create these beautiful, yet simple, pieces.

The Shakers weren't just talented furniture builders; they were innovators and savvy business people who held many patents.

The Shakers' contributions include the flat broom and the clothespin; they claimed to have invented the circular saw and to have come up with the innovative idea to place seeds in paper envelopes.

The only intact Fountain Stone that survives from any Shaker community will also be on display. The stone, used for religious rituals, was discovered when the state was building the Craig Developmental Center at the site of the Groveland Shaker community in Livingston County.

The New York State Museum will be updating and reissuing a catalog for this exhibition titled A Shaker Legacy: The Shaker Collection at the New York State Museum.

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*For slides, please call 518-486-2003.

To view the previous exhibition, please visit www.nysm.nysed.gov/history/shaker/index.html

The New York State Museum is open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

ALBANY, N.Y. - Shaker experts from the New York State Museum and other local museums and historic sites will gather at the State Museum on October 21, from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., to explore the influences that shaped and created the Shaker legacy.

The New York State Museum has played a special role in preserving the heritage of the Shakers. In 1926, with their numbers dwindling, the Shakers embarked on a fifteen year partnership with the museum in an effort to insure that their culture would survive. As a result, the museum possesses a collection of Shaker artifacts unique in the world. For the first time since 1982, portions of that collection are now on display - including the only intact Fountain Stone, used for religious rituals, that survives from any Shaker community. A Shaker Legacy: The Shaker Collection at the New York State Museum is on view in the museum's Exhibition Hall through Sunday, Oct. 22.

In association with the museum's exhibit of Shaker artifacts, the symposium will explore the history surrounding the creation of the Shaker legacy by various museums and collectors. The symposium's speakers include:

• John Scherer, Associate Curator at the State Museum, speaking on the creation of the State Museum's Shaker Collection.
• Jerry Grant, from the Shaker Museum at Old Chatham, doing a presentation on the Shaker Collection at the Shaker Museum at Old Chatham.
• Sharon Koomler, Curator at Hancock Shaker Village, talking about Shaker spirit drawings and the establishment of Hancock Shaker Village Museum.
• Shaker authority Elizabeth Shaver and Craig Williams, Associate Curator, New York State Museum, presenting a program on William F. Winter, photographer of the Shakers.
• Ned Pratt, former Director of Shaker Heritage Society and President of the local chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, doing a program on Shaker Barns.
• Fran Kramer, author and Shaker Collector, speaking on Shaker Collecting in the Twentieth Century.

The symposium will include a catered luncheon at 12 Noon and a gallery tour commencing at 4 o'clock. There is a fee of $46, $40 for Museum members. Pre-registration is required by October 6. The public may call (518) 473-7154 for information.

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A special three-day exhibition, From New York to the White House, New York Residents Who Became President, will open Friday, February 15, 2013 in the lobby of the New York State Museum. The exhibit features the original draft of George Washington’s 1796 Farewell Address, penned is his hand.
 

On display through Sunday, February 17, 2013, the exhibition will honor the nation’s first president as well as New York’s political leaders who rose to the presidency, including Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, Ulysses S. Grant, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The exhibition will include several important artifacts from the George Washington Collection at the New York State Library, including an original draft of George Washington’s Farewell Address, penned in his hand, which was sent to Alexander Hamilton for comment and revision on May 15, 1796. It was rescued from the fire that ravaged the State Capitol in 1911. One of Washington’s dress swords will also be on display. According to Washington family tradition, the sword was presented to Washington by Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. The sword was purchased by the State of New York directly from Washington’s family in 1871 and is depicted in the Washington portrait that hangs in the United States House of Representatives.

The exhibition will also include pages from an extremely rare volume entitled "A Representation of the Cloathing of His Majesty's Household and of all the Forces upon the Establishments of Great Britain and Ireland, 1742". This collection of colored engravings of British military uniforms was given to Washington in 1787.

Photos from the exhibit are available at: http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/PRkit/2013/presidentsday/index.html
 

The New York State Museum is a program of the State Education Department's Office of Cultural Education. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

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